Free Republic

e Rev. Al Sharpton thinks Donald Trump has run a “great” media campaign in his bid for the White House — and believes the Republican is like a white version of his pal Don King. Sharpton, in a wide-ranging interview with the Daily News editorial board Thursday, said he’d probably get in trouble for saying it, but admitted that the similarities between the boxing promoter and the real estate tycoon are striking. "My definition of Donald Trump is that if Don King had been born white, he'd be Donald Trump," Sharpton said.

Dr. Manning explains that the people of Harlem are starting to look at Donald Trump.(7 Jan. 2016)

The city has agreed to more stringent regulations on anti-terror cops in ­order to settle two federal lawsuits that claimed the NYPD violated constitutional rights by spying on Muslims. The city will pay $2,033,416 in legal fees to the plaintiffs, but no monetary damages, and will add another layer of review to a committee that monitors its intelligence gathering. The NYPD will also remove a 92-page report, “Radicalization in the West: The Homegrown Threat,” from its Web site.

NEW YORK, Jan 7 (Reuters) - New York's Mayor Bill de Blasio has submitted a resolution to the city's police pension fund, urging it to consider exiting investments in companies that manufacture assault weapons for civilians, the mayor's office said on Thursday.

Raising the bar for other cities throughout the country, New York City announced "strong" and "bold" protections for transgender and gender non-conforming individuals. The new legal guidance, issued Dec. 21 by the New York City Commission on Human Rights, came as part of an expansion of the city's 2002 Human Rights Law, which protects against discrimination in a range of categories. The updated policy specifically protects transgender and gender non-conforming individuals from discrimination in areas of employment, public accommodation, and housing.

NYC Settles Lawsuits Over Muslim Surveillance by Police By tom hays, associated press NEW YORK -- Jan 7, 2016 The New York Police Department will strengthen safeguards against illegal surveillance of Muslims in investigations of terror threats and install a civilian representative on an advisory committee that reviews the probes under the terms of a settlement of two high-profile civil rights lawsuits, lawyers said Thursday. The announcement of a deal following months of negotiations formally ended litigation over accusations that the nation's largest police department cast a shadow over Muslim communities with a covert campaign of religious profiling and illegal...

Four police vehicles were involved in an accident Sunday on the FDR Drive in East Harlem. The officers, assigned to the department's elite new "SRG" tactical unit, had been travelling in convoy southbound at East 116th Street, when a car ahead of them slowed down.

New York is reaping the whirlwind of sky-high cigarette taxes with a wave of smuggling decimating the state’s revenue. New York raised taxes on cigarettes to $4.35 in 2010 from $2.75. In total, cigarette taxes have increased by 190 percent since 2006. The sharp rise has resulted in a raft of unintended consequences which are dealing a significant blow to the state’s finances. New York State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli reports New York’s revenue from cigarette taxes has plunged by $400 million over the past five years.

..New York has nine specialised high schools, of which eight admit students using the city’s Specialist High Schools Admissions Test (SHSAT). The education they offer rivals that of private schools that charge $40,000 a year. The high schools are free. The most popular, Stuyvesant, sends roughly 25% of its graduates to the Ivy League or other top colleges. The school’s unofficial mantra is “Sleep, study, socialise: pick two.” It admits 4% of test-takers, pickier than Harvard.New York’s Democratic mayor, Bill de Blasio thinks the SHSAT favours parents who can afford tutors. He wants to “broaden” (ie, relax) the admissions criteria,...

The New York Police Department moved swiftly late Tuesday and early Wednesday to beat back accusations of statistical manipulation leveled by its former commissioner, Raymond W. Kelly, that called into question the city's official count of shootings and murders. In a briefing with reporters at Police Headquarters, a news release that contained a point-by-point rebuttal and an appearance on national television by the current commissioner, William J. Bratton, on Wednesday, police officials denied any altering of statistics and defended the city's low crime figures for 2015. "He is engaging in politics, and as you know the first casualty of politics...

It's Spitz-ville: Disgraced former New York governor Eliot Spitzer and his girlfriend, 33, break up - two years after affair ended his marriage It was an affair said to have cost Eliot Spitzer his marriage and his girlfriend her political spin job. But after two years together it appears that the disgraced former New York governor and partner Lis Smith have gone their separate ways, NY Daily News reports. Smith had just joined Bill de Blasio's team and was widely considered to be the likely candidate for the mayor's press secretary when pictures of emerged of then-married Spitzer sneaking into...

<p>The New York City Police Department is ramping up security around tourist hotspots, but denies a report claiming it received a "credible threat" against the city ahead of Christmas.</p> <p>Commissioner William Bratton held an emergency meeting with authorities Tuesday to urge police officers to remain vigilant during the busy holiday season, sources told PIX11 News.</p>

NEW YORK - A "credible threat" has been lodged against New York City, days ahead of Christmas and during an especially busy time of the year when tourists flock to the Big Apple, law enforcement sources told PIX11 News Tuesday. Top NYPD brass including Commissioner William Bratton held an emergency meeting Tuesday to discuss the threat and their response to it, sources said. Few details were released about the nature of the threat. A federal law enforcement source said the threat is not specific and could take place in several major U.S. cities. All New York City police officers received...

White House Holds Meeting With Muslims And Sikhs by KRISTIN DONNELLY, CHRIS JANSING and CORKY SIEMASZKO President Obama's top advisers held a series of meetings Monday with Muslim and Sikh religious leaders to discuss the fallout their communities are facing in the wake of the deadly San Bernardino shootings. Senior adviser Valerie Jarrett, Domestic Policy Council director Cecilia Munoz, and Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes took part in the White House sit-downs — a dozen days after a radicalized Muslim couple fatally shot 14 people and wounded 21 more in California. The Chicago-born Syed Farood and his wife Tashfeen...

From last night's speech to the New England Police Benevolent Association, which voted to endorse him. Rarely can you tell whether a new Trump policy idea was gamed out beforehand or just something he came up with on the fly while in front of a mic, and this is no exception. His advisor, Dan Scavino, tweeted it out after Trump said it, though, so if it wasn't official campaign policy before, I guess it is now. Is it worth critiquing this? Krauthammer’s ready to give up on arguing against Trump policies, partly because they're all obviously political panders rather than...

“It reminded me of days in the Old West where there’d be a shooting and the whole town would go through and look,” former NYPD officer Bill Stanton tells TheWrap.The FBI potentially dropped the ball by letting media ransack the home of the San Bernardino shooters just two days after the massacre. “They [the FBI] totally scrubbed it from head to toe, or it’s a major **** up,” former NYPD police officer Bill Stanton told TheWrap about reporters from MSNBC, CNN and other outlets being allowed into the suspects’ home to comb through photos and documents. Stanton, who worked for...

Congressman Chris Gibson of New York is calling for an investigation into Governor Andrew Cuomo's administration after learning hundreds of millions of dollars in loans went to Health Republic, an insurance co-op that lasted only two years, and which caused 215,000 New Yorkers to lose their insurance. Health Republic was founded in 2013 with $265 Million in federal loans. It soon became one of the largest health insurance cooperatives in the United States. Now it is no more after New York regulators discovered massive deficits in Health Republic's books. Originally ordered to close by December 31, regulators had to bump...

The principal of DeWitt Clinton HS, a struggling Bronx school in Mayor de Blasio's multimillion-dollar Renewal program, changed students failing grades to passing without teachers knowledge or consent, insiders told The Post. In one case, Santiago Taveras gave a senior who received a "no show" in a global-history class a 75 and changed her failing 55 grade in gym to a minimum passing 65, records show. She then got a credit for each class, which she did not deserve, several staffers charged. He thinks he is God and can do whatever he wants. ... Taveras changed a students failing 55...

Muslim-Americans who sued the New York Police Department over a surveillance program launched after 9/11 say calls from the Republican presidential campaign to put them under more scrutiny are recklessly seizing on public fears and distressing Muslims in the U.S.

Mayor de Blasio said his son Dante has been active in protests over racial issues at Yale — and they both agree the school should drop the name of a prominent defender of slavery. Dante, a freshman, is assigned to Yale’s Calhoun College, named for John C. Calhoun, a U.S. vice president and South Carolina senator who vehemently backed slavery as a “positive good” for the nation. “He’s very concerned, and he certainly notes the fact that the college he’s in, Calhoun College, is named for someone it shouldn’t be named for,” de Blasio told reporters Monday. “ That’s quite...