Free Republic

(Photo courtesy of Carl R. Gottstein Jr.) By: Raquel Okyay4/6/2014 03:20 PMRESIZE: AAA Print More than a year after the New York governor’s landmark gun control law was enacted, thousands of New Yorkers poured into the state house in Albany to protest his governance and leadership.“There is nothing about the SAFE Act that makes us safer,” said Robert P. “Rob” Astorino (R-Mount Pleasant), executive of Westchester County and candidate for governor 2014. Astorino, who spoke to the crowd state police estimate at 3500, said the people were energized and enthusiastic about the Second Amendment. “It’s an issue that deals with...

By April 15th, any New Yorker that owns an “assault weapon” is to have registered their gun, per the requirements of the New York SAFE act passed last year. But it’s looking more and more like a tiny percentage of New Yorkers are actually doing it. While the state of New York has not released actual firearms registration numbers, the rumors of registrations in the 3,000-5,000 range mean that 99% of those affected gun owners are refusing to comply with the law.

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...

A black Bronx man feels he’s being forced out of his luxury high-rise in predominantly white Riverdale after waking Friday to find racially charged graffiti scrawled on his truck for the second time, he told the Daily News. Menuhin Hart, 54, said he discovered the hateful message: “U Shood Move” spray-painted on his 2011 Dodge Ram pickup truck as he left to run errands with his Army vet brother. In 2013, his truck was keyed on every panel, and the words “black n-----” were clearly scratched into the paint, he said. …

A majority of the cigarettes for sale in New York are illegally smuggled into the state, according to a report out Wednesday from the conservative research group the Tax Foundation. According to the report, 56.9% of the cigarettes sold in New York—the highest importer of smuggled cigarettes—originated from out of state. Since 2006, cigarette smuggling in the state has risen sharply, by 59%, in tandem with a massive hike in cigarette taxes of 190%. New York state now has the highest cigarette taxes in the country, at $4.35 a pack. Residents of NYC must also pay an extra $1.50 per...

Above: Protesters demanding passage of a financial aid bill for illegal aliens students in New York State.- by Brian Hayes | Top Right NewsLegislators stunned the pundits this evening by defeating a $200 million taxpayer giveaway to illegal aliens students in New York's Senate, which had the strong support of Governor Andrew Cuomo. The 'DREAM Act' was defeated by a 30-29 vote in the state Senate just minutes ago in Albany.

If you’ve never been to the annual New York City St. Patrick’s Day Parade, better put it on your calendar for next year. That is, if there is a next year. Time could be running out on the world’s biggest celebration of all things Irish. Why? Because the parade’s organizers have for two decades steadfastly refused to allow gay and lesbian organizations to march under banners trumpeting their sexual orientation. The city’s self-appointed guardians of human rights long ago declared this policy exclusionary and intolerant. But, unlike in previous decades, the effort to paint the parade and its organizers...

It’s been a rough week in terms of eaters finding disgusting things in their food. There was Jon Hughes of North Wales, who found a dead shrew inside his bag of potato chips , and Robin Sandusky of New York who found a lizard’s head and arm inside her salad . Making this a trifecta is Natalie Estrella, who found a large, disgusting bug in her soup from a New York restaurant, as WPIX 11 News reports. After finding the bug (and taking a picture), she alerted her waiter. The waiter took the soup away and disposed of the bug,...

"Mali national arraigned in 2000 killing of American diplomat in Niger" 


"9/11 plotter released in Syria prisoner exchange" SNIPPET: "The al-Qaeda recruiter reputed to have assembled the so-called Hamburg Cell, which planned and largely carried out the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington, has been set free in a prisoner exchange between rebel and regime forces in Syria. Islamist rebel group Ahrar al-Sham has secured the release of 9/11 plotter and alleged al-Qaeda core member Mohammed Haydar Zammar, adding to concerns about the composition of the Islamic Front. A naturalized German citizen of Syrian origin, Mohammed Haydar Zammar left Germany shortly after the attacks and traveled to Morocco, where he was reportedly...

The pastor of a Lansingburgh Baptist church plans to give away an AR-15 assault rifle to the winner of a free raffle at an upcoming Sunday service. A provocative flier he distributed rallied supporters of gun rights and stirred controversy among anti-gun advocates and some who considered it un-Christian. The Rev. John Koletas, pastor of Grace Baptist Church, said the service and gun raffle are aimed at "honoring hunters and gun owners who have been so viciously attacked by the antichristian socialist media and antichristian socialist politicians the last few years," according to a letter he posted on the church...

west Boca Raton man is making no apologies for flying a Ku Klux Klan flag and confederate flag outside his mobile home. "As many people know, the white families are producing less children because the father and mother work and you have interracial marriages and gay marriages, so there are less and less white children being born every day," the man, who would only identify himself as Mr. Hayes, told Local 10's Roger Lohse. "So we're against that." Hayes said he started flying the KKK flag a couple weeks ago and posted a sign seeking new members. He claims so...

Faithful Catholics in Buffalo were discouraged to read in their local paper late last month that their allegedly pro-life Catholic senator Tim Kennedy (D-63rd District) intends to vote in favor of New York’s Democratic governor Andrew Cuomo’s expansion of abortion in the State. Kennedy won his seat in 2010 by running as a pro-life candidate ousting then-Senator Bill Stachowski—a Democrat with a strong pro-life record.Claiming that his position on abortion has “evolved” after much thought and prayer, Kennedy joins a long list of self-described Catholic politicians like Governor Cuomo himself who claim that they are “personally opposed to abortion,”...

Mayor de Blasio brought down the hammer Thursday on three charter schools operated by his nemesis Eva Moskowitz, leaving hundreds of kids without classrooms this fall. “This has to be the saddest day for the Success Academy’s children, family, teachers, school leaders,” Moskowitz said after meeting with stunned charter parents in Harlem. “Right now, our kids are being evicted. Evicted out of their school. It’s wrong and we need an explanation. You’re going to have to ask Mayor de Blasio what the motivations are for a decision that will hurt so many children now and, frankly, forever.”

by Susan Frommer | Top Right NewsKindness and consideration is something to be admired especially when helping firefighters who have spent hours in subzero weather battling a local fire.  So when McDonald’s Manager Heather Levia saw a way to help them by donating food and paying for it out of her own pocket for them, being fired never occurred to her.  But that is exactly what followed for the New York former manager at an Olean, NY McDonalds, according to Fox 44. Total disbelief is one of the motions that had to have come across the young woman’s face when her...

Quick — someone check to see if the Koch Brothers have bought Time Warner Cable News! Harry Reid needs to know, after all, because all of these “horror stories” about ObamaCare are just lies. Actually, we may need to see if the Kochs have bought all of New York, because small-business owners are discovering that Reid’s law does anything but “bend the cost curve downward” (via Daniel Halper):CLICK ABOVE LINK FOR THE VIDEO ,/H4> “Everything is on hold. We won’t grow. We won’t reach that threshold. It is not worth it for us,” says pet store owner Matt Sames.The reporter...

As the People’s Republic of New York continues to congeal into tyranny, not even 5-year-olds are safe from Big Government intrusion. Unfortunately the sort of people who would put up resistance to government encroachment will be ever more outnumbered as people escape Andrew Cuomo’s statist dystopia in search of freedom, opportunity, and lower taxes.

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo is airing TV ads around the country that offer tax-free status for 10 years to new business start-ups entering his state. The ads' claims are deceptive because they come with a lot of government strings attached. You only get a tax cut if you put your business where the state tells you to put it, plus meet other state requirements. Critics say Cuomo's sweeping claims are not what they're cracked up to be. Once again, not unlike President Obama's tax credit proposals, the Democrats think they can dictate the rules that produce successful businesses and...

The Cuomo administration has a serious, potentially deadly laser pointer shortage. That's the only way to explain a report from the Albany Times-Union that Jerome Hauer, the state's commissioner of Homeland Security & Emergency Services, used the the laser sight on his handgun as a pointer during a presentation in October, panicking a bunch of foreign delegates from countries where guns are only used for civilized things like shooting people.

Simple design tweaks are allowing gun makers to get around restrictions New York put in place following the 2012 school shootings in Connecticut, prompting some critics to say the laws were mere window dressing. New York lawmakers passed the SAFE Act last year, and announced with fanfare that it effectively banned the sale of “assault weapons.” But AR-15s, the most popular type of guns often referred to as assault weapons, are sold in Empire State gun shops, freely and legally. The gun is being marketed by Stag Arms as a "New York-compliant AR-15," and features a slightly modified stock and...