Free Republic

Claiming she spent a marathon 12 consecutive days in Albany on “legislative business,” Queens Assemblywoman Vivian Cook pocketed $171 for each reported overnight stay — a total $2,197 in taxpayer money from March 21 to April 1, 2010. The Legislature was in session just three of those days — and Cook was absent for all three, records show. “Me? You’re kidding! No! I didn’t do that,” she told The Post. “I don’t lie, I don’t cheat, and I don’t steal,” said Cook, whose nonprofit Rockaway Boulevard Local Development Corp. prompted an investigation for allegedly misusing taxpayer funds. In 2010 and...

With most New Yorkers' attention focused on the presidential election, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand's debate-ducking is flying under the radar. To date, Gillibrand's opponent Wendy Long has accepted five separate debate requests while Kirsten Gillibrand has agreed to only one, which will only air in upstate New York and New York City, ignoring the people of Long Island and the Hudson Valley. Out of one side of her mouth, Kirsten Gillibrand calls herself "a trailblazer for more openness and transparency" while out of the other, she says "no" to the chance to make her case for re-election directly to New Yorkers....

It was one of those little stories that most people miss, even more so when it is released during a heated presidential election. But it is one that is critically important because it represents an unprecedented power grab by the one profession that has arguably done more damage to America than any other. If Americans don't demand an end to this nonsense, we have no one to blame but ourselves. The details of the story are both simple and infuriating: a New York appeals court in has ruled that a former high school athlete shot in 2003 can sue --...

Former Republican Presidential Candidate and Chairman of Patriot Voices Rick Santorum announced today that Patriot Voices PAC has made endorsements in several U.S. Senate races. The endorsements are: George Allen in Virginia, Wendy Long in New York, Josh Mandel in Ohio and Tom Smith in Pennsylvania. Rick Santorum said, "These individuals are incredibly committed conservatives who will be tremendous assets in the United States Senate. Each of them shares a commitment to lowering taxes, protecting life at every stage, promoting the traditional family and a belief that the individual should have the power -- not the government. Patriot Voices PAC...

LE ROY — An Erie County man faces various charges after a routine traffic stop on Route 19 led to the discovery of a homemade grenade and long gun in the trunk of a car Monday morning. The discovery forced the evacuation of some residents and the closing of several roads in the village. Paul R. Kaiser, 26, of 12335 Bullis Rd., East Aurora was charged with one count of first-degree criminal possession of a weapon, a Class B felony; one count of unlawful possession of marijuana and various traffic offenses including speeding, driving with a suspended license and uninspected...

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Investigators probing the London terror bombings are focusing on an elusive British Muslim suspect who is connected to a previous plot to set up a terrorist training camp in rural southern Oregon, according to U.S. counterterrorism officials. Officials told both NBC News and CNN Wednesday that Haroon Rashid Aswat, believed to be a mastermind of the London bombings, is the same British-born Muslim of Indian descent who scouted a Bly, Oregon ranch to set up a terror camp. These officials said Aswat, a Pakistani national being sought for questioning as a person of interest by British authorities,...

A New York police detective shot and killed an unarmed man, whose hands, a witness said, were on the steering wheel of his Honda, after he had been pulled over early Thursday for cutting off two police trucks on the Grand Central Parkway in Queens, the authorities said....The shooting, which occurred at 5:15 a.m., was the latest in a series of episodes in which police officers fatally shot or wounded civilians...A passenger in Mr. Polanco’s car, Diane Deferrari, said in a phone interview Thursday night that just before pulling the car over, officers appeared irate that Mr. Polanco had cut...

NOTE The following text is a quote: www.fbi.gov/houston/press-releases/2012/russian-agent-and-10-other-members-of-procurement-network-for-russian-military-and-intelligence-operating-in-the-u.s.-and-russia-indicted-in-new-york Russian Agent and 10 Other Members of Procurement Network for Russian Military and Intelligence Operating in the U.S. and Russia Indicted in New York Defendants Also Include Texas- and Russia-Based Corporations; 165 Persons and Companies ‘Designated’ by Commerce Department U.S. Attorney’s Office October 03, 2012 BROOKLYN, NY—An indictment was unsealed today in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York charging 11 members of a Russian military procurement network operating in the United States and Russia, as well as a Texas-based export company and a Russia-based procurement firm, with illegally...

Abandoned on a door step in the dead of night, these are the desperate notes pinned to babies by poor and often unmarried mothers, pleading for someone to care for their child. The heartbreaking letters became part of records at the New York Foundling Asylum in the mid-19th century. In October 1869, a group of nuns renovated a brownstone at 17 East 12th Street in Manhattan into the Foundling Asylum

If Republicans ran the culture, Wendy Long would be a household name. She’d be a heroine. She’d be celebrated. She’d have a Barbie doll named after her. She’d be driving the election season. But Wendy Long is the Republican running for Senate in New York, and it was decided long ago that Republicans don’t win Hillary Clinton’s old seat — the “Daniel Patrick Moynihan seat.” (Nevermind that Jim Buckley was there before them.) Those who decide such things, however, forget that just an Amtrak ride away there is a Republican incumbent running for reelection for what was not that long...

If things were different, Wendy Long would be a household name. She'd be a heroine, and she'd be driving the election season. But Long is the Republican running for Senate in New York, where calculations were made long ago to ensure that Republicans don't win Hillary Clinton's old spot, the old Daniel Patrick Moynihan seat. But such plans don't have to pan out. Long is exactly the kind of woman the Senate needs. A former Supreme Court law clerk, she left private practice at an esteemed firm to build the Judicial Confirmation Network, a conservative advocacy group. This campaign is...

On October 31st 1999 EgyptAir Flight 990 struck the ocean with the loss of all on board. The end of the NTSB's final summary reads thusly "The National Transportation Safety Board determines that the probable cause of the EgyptAir flight 990 accident is the airplane's departure from normal cruise flight and subsequent impact with the Atlantic Ocean as a result of the relief first officer's flight control inputs. The reason for the relief first officer's actions was not determined."

<p>Egyptian-American progressive activist Mona Eltahaway was arrested in New York on Tuesday after spray painting over both a pro-Israel Subway advertisement and anti-jihadist blogger Pamela Hall, who tried to block the pink-clad Eltahaway from destroying the poster.</p> <p>“I am not violating it [free speech], I am making an expression on free speech,” Eltahaway said as the bizarre encounter was being recorded.</p>

Cardinal Dolan, the head of the U.S Conference of Catholic Bishops and the Archdiocese of New York, is slamming a program that will give morning after pills to girls in NYC schools as young as 14-years-old.The New York City Department of Education is furnishing morning-after pills and other birth control drugs to students at 13 city high schools and without parental permission. School nurses supplied with the drugs, which can cause a very early abortion, are dispensing “Plan B” and other oral or injectable birth control to girls as young as 14 without telling their parents — unless the parents...

@mrubin1971Two news stories from recent weeks, if true, should raise a red flag in the United States that Iran is preparing to use Hezbollah to strike at U.S. interests in Latin America, if not in the United States itself.First, this story from the Lebanese news portal Naharnet and sourced in part to Israeli radio. The Naharnet story was taken down shortly after it appeared: Hezbollah is using a training base established by Iran in northern Nicaragua near the border with Honduras, the Israeli radio reported on Thursday [September 6]. “The area is cordoned off and there are around 30 members...

Dear fellow conservative: Could there be a worse incumbent Democrat senator facing re-election than New York's Kirsten Gillibrand? And could we have a better challenger-a more reliable, articulate, intelligent woman; a more authentic, talented, and real conservative-than my old pal, Wendy Long? snip The act of political donating used to be so . . . provincial. But we're all smarter now: We've learned, too often the hard way, that every senator, not just those from our own state, but every single senator has a huge impact on our lives. That one vote always seems to matter, snip Without question, Wendy...

Disgraced former State Sen. Pedro Espada helped himself to one more big payday, selling off tattered remains of his Bronx health clinic and pocketing the dough, prosecutors said in court papers unsealed today. The US Attorney’s Office in Brooklyn is asking a federal judge to revoke bail and lock up Espada, who was convicted earlier this year of using his Soundview Health Center as his personal slush fund. Brooklyn federal judge Frederic Block ordered everyone to court for a hearing on Friday. Following Espada’s May 14 conviction, state and federal authorities moved in and prevented the disgraced pol and his...

Opponents of same-sex marriage took the neck-and-neck finishes of Republican primary challengers to Sens. Roy McDonald and Steve Saland as a sign of strength. McDonald, R-Saratoga and Saland, R-Poughkeepsie, were among four Republicans who sided with a slew of Democrats to assure the same-sex marriage bill’s 33-29 passage in 2011, and conservatives have had them in their sights ever since. (Sen. Mark Grisanti, R-Buffalo, easily won a primary and Sen. Jim Alesi, R-Rochester, did not seek another term.) While gay rights advocates stuffed McDonald and Saland’s coffers, grass roots groups mobilized against them, and may have succeeded in ousting one...

Very odd. I am here in Suffolk County Long Island and we just had an interruption warning us of a tornado warning. Last time that happened was in the late 90's.

<p>These innocents fell afoul of the nation’s toughest gun laws. But few New Yorkers know how those laws came to be.</p> <p>The father of New York gun control was Democratic city pol “Big Tim “Sullivan — a state senator and Tammany Hall crook, a criminal overseer of the gangs of New York.</p>