Free Republic

Ed Koch, the brash, colorful and often confrontational mayor who helped to lead New York City out of its brush with bankruptcy in the 1970s, launching an astonishing municipal turnaround that continues to this day, has died. He was 88.

Representative Anthony Weiner (D-Brooklyn) of New York's 9th congressional district, said banks that received funds from the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) are already "effectively nationalized."When asked at a question-and-answer session last night at NYU Law School about whether the Obama administration's contemplation of converting preferred shares of banks obtained as part of the bailout process into common stock would amount to nationalization, Weiner said it would.Further, he reasoned, since the federal government currently exercises leverage over bank actions by dint of holding the option to convert preferred shares in banks to common stock (thereby technically gaining board representation,)...

After more than three decades in United States prisons — a term punctuated by a brief escape and recapture — a 62-year-old Croatian independence fighter was returned to his native country on Thursday, having served his time for a 1976 hijacking and a bombing that killed a police officer. The fighter, Zvonko Busic, led a group that planted a bomb at Grand Central Terminal that later exploded, killing a city police officer, Brian J. Murray. Mr. Busic left the Federal Correctional Complex in Terre Haute, Ind., boarded a plane in Chicago and touched down in Zagreb about 2:20 p.m. on...

Hallelujah! Maybe the most shameful feature of the New York City public school system -- its infamous network of "rubber rooms" -- will soon be history. The Department of Education and the United Federation of Teachers yesterday announced that the rooms -- essentially detention centers where teachers accused of misconduct while away months and years at full pay -- will be eliminated entirely come the fall. For more than three years, The Post doggedly campaigned against the rubber rooms -- where hundreds of teachers and administrators got paid for doing absolutely nothing, at a cost of $40 million a year...

WASHINGTON -- It didn't take long for former University of New Mexico President Louis Caldera to make headlines in his new job, taking responsibility Monday for terrifying New Yorkers with a government photo op gone wrong. Caldera, director of the White House Military Office, apologized for a federal flyover fiasco in lower Manhattan that sent New Yorkers into the streets in fear of another 9/11-style attack. Caldera served as U.S. Army secretary under President Clinton and became UNM president in 2003. As director of the White House Military Office, he coordinates all military support for the White House. He oversees...

Federal agents contend that a Pennsylvania man tried to work with al Qaeda in a plot to blow up the Alaska pipeline, another pipeline in Pennsylvania and a refinery in New Jersey, according to a published report. Michael Curtis Reynolds, 47, has not officially been charged with terrorism, but a prosecutor at a hearing said that Reynolds tried to "provide material aid to al Qaeda" and that the case "involves a federal offense of terrorism," The Philadelphia Inquirer reported in its Sunday editions. CBS News correspondent Randall Pinkston reports that a tip from Shannen Rossmiller - a judge from Conrad,...

The National Tracing Center database is an essential resource for law enforcement. Beyond enabling law enforcement to trace the history of a gun linked to a crime, it helps identify patterns of gun theft and trafficking. And that information can help local law enforcement — like the NYPD — in stopping illegal guns before they're used to commit crimes. Yet the NYPD — along with every other branch of law enforcement in the nation — is being denied the information needed to get illegal guns off our streets: There is no requirement that stolen guns or guns used to commit...

A Most Solemn Call Christine Darg Dear friends, The following call is a very serious one and right on, I want to add again the call to pray for New York as this City represents by my understanding the main target of the next attack in the US, also as until recently it had the largest concentration of Jewish People in the world. They call it the "Big Apple" and the Jewish people are the "Apple of God's Eye". I really felt that was a lot of the reason that it became already the target on 9/11, and it will...

Per MSNBC...

So after all those years of hearing the argument that extraordinarily generous pension, holiday, vacation, and health care benefits for government employees were justified because they made lower salaries than private sector workers, the premise turns out not to be true. The Citizens Budget Commission draws our attention to recently released 2004 data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. They show that in the New York City region, fringe benefits aside, state and local government employees actually earn 15% more on average than private sector employees - $28.26 an hour compared to $24.62 an hour. The attention raised by the...

House residents Nekita Joyner and her sons Perry (center) and Gary made it out safely. A handicapped Brooklyn great-grandma almost fell out of her house yesterday when the back wall collapsed, exposing two floors and the basement like a cutaway dollhouse. "I was sleeping and I heard a big boom," said Nekita Joyner, 34, who lives in the house with six other relatives on Grafton Street in East New York. "A neighbor called and said, 'I can see the boiler in the basement.' The next thing I know, I heard the house cracking."

August 26, 2004 -- The "Bike National Convention" may have just had its tires slashed. The NYPD yesterday announced a crackdown on a group that promotes monthly mass bike rides and has promised traffic-disrupting events during the GOP convention. The group, Time's Up, founded the so-called "critical mass" rides on the last Friday of each month. The crackdown was spurred by Time's Up's planned Bike National Convention, timed to coincide with the Republican gala. On Tuesday, the riders evoked Paul Revere's famous ride, with bicyclists chanting, "The Republicans are coming!" along Lexington Avenue. A police source said that caught the...

NOTE: I did not write this diatribe, I will voice out in the "afterward". This weekend lots of folks are gonna be tearin' it up in NYC at the Republican National Convention, showing not only the country, but the rest of the world that not all of us are "united" behind the Bush administration and their "War on Terror." "Bring the war home," went a slogan for the Weather Underground. Similarly, Fugazi said, "There will be two wars." As long as the power elite wages war abroad, we will inevitably feel the effects at home: immigration restriction, and hightened racism,...

Cheerleaders for TerrorismBy Erick StakelbeckFrontPageMagazine.com | June 17, 2003 Two groups whom Islamic terrorists can count on for sympathy and support are radical lawyers and their counterparts in American law schools. Lynne Stewart is a hero of the National Lawyers Guild and a sought-after campus lecturer. While out on bail under indictment for colluding with a terrorist leader, she has been a sought-after speaker for law school audiences who relish her attacks on Attorney General John Ashcroft as a modern-day fascist and on her country for its imperialist and racist policies. Stewart made national headlines in April 2002 when she...

I am headed to Annie Moran's in Manhattan where I hope like last year to post the live thread using my pocket PC and wireless connection to keep freepers informed of the festivities. A blessed holidays to all.

Tri-State NY NJ CT Freeper Holiday Party Sunday, December 28th, 2003 1:00 pm until 4:00 pm. Location: Annie Moore's Pub and Restaurant 50 East 43rd St.( by Grand Central Station) (between Vanderbilt and Madison Avenues) New York, NY 10017 212 986 7826 Named for the first immigrant to be processed through Ellis Island, Annie Moore's is one of the new generation of Irish bars opened in 1995. Subways: Shuttle, 4, 5, 6, 7 to 42nd St-Grand Central This place is right across the street from Grand Central Terminal (go out the doors next to Michael Jordan's bar) Map to Annie...

Pistol-packing Senior Chases Off Mugger, Gets Charged for Unlicensed Gun By Marcus Solis (Bronx-WABC, November 5, 2003) — A mugger in the Bronx got quite a surprise when the 80-year-old man he attacked in an elevator pulled out a .38 caliber handgun. There was a struggle, a shot was fired, and now the elderly victim is being criminally charged. Marcus Solis is in the Mott Haven section of the Bronx where he talked with the man. Lester Campbell says the gun belonged to his mother, and that it was passed onto him when she died. And he said he would...

<p>August 6, 2003 -- WASHINGTON - A Pakistani man arrested by the FBI in New York City was fingered by 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and could face charges of supporting terrorism in an effort to procure chemical weapons, it was reported yesterday.</p>