Free Republic

WASHINGTON — In President Joe Biden’s telling, he was a teenage civil rights activist, a former trucker, the first in his family to go college and the nephew of a cannibalism victim. All of these claims stretch the truth or are downright false. But Biden persists in telling personal tales with rhetorical flourishes and factual liberty when he works a room or regales an audience. They are a way to connect with voters, emphasize his “middle-class Joe” persona and charm his audience. Despite Biden’s penchant for exaggerating details when recounting episodes from his life, these autobiographical embellishments differ in scale...

He’s not mincing words. Republican New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu dished Thursday on the current and former governors who “nobody liked” — claiming that Gavin Newsom and Andrew Cuomo are despised by other state leaders. “I gotta be honest, no one cares for Gavin,” Sununu said of the California Democrat during an event at the Reagan Institute Summit on Education in Washington, DC. “Gavin is just a #$@_&. He just is,” he added. “It’s really disappointing.” Sununu, 49, indicated that he used to get along well with Newsom, but now, even Democratic governors can’t stand him.

Just what is former Gov. Andrew Cuomo up to these days? It sure seems like he’s gearing up for another run — but under which political party? The first clue is his bid at massive COVID revisionism. In a recent interview, Cuomo claimed he hadn’t forced anyone to close their business or wear a mask, and in fact had no power to do so. Indeed, to hear Cuomo tell it, people all did it voluntarily. Please. For those of us who lived through Cuomo’s New York in 2020 and haven’t somehow had our memories erased, the truth was quite different.

Former Gov. Andrew Cuomo scored another win in his efforts to unravel the state’s new ethics commission, as part of an ongoing spat over his pandemic-era book deal. A mid-level appellate court upheld a lower court judge’s decision to scrap the Commission on Ethics and Lobbying in Government, COELIG, which had ordered the ex-gov to fork over proceeds from his pandemic era memoir. “The Legislature, though well-intentioned in its actions, violated the bedrock principles of separation of powers,” the five-judge panel wrote in its unanimous ruling. The former Governor, who stepped down in 2021 amid a wave of sexual harassment...

Former Gov. Andrew Cuomo called the country’s migrant crisis a “government blunder” Sunday, taking aim at fellow Dems Gov. Hochul and President Biden during a speech at a Bronx church. The 66-year-old scandal-scarred ex-gov — continuing his tiptoe back into the public spotlight two and a half years after resigning during a sex-harassment scandal — told congregants at the Grove Missionary Baptist Church it is wrong for New York City to have to shoulder the whole flood of migrants into the state because Albany politicians “don’t want the problem in the rest of” New York. “New York state says the...

Former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Sunday that Big Apple Mayor Eric Adams “is right” to warn the migrant crisis could “destroy” the five boroughs. Cuomo, 65, sided with Adams while bashing their fellow Dems — President Biden and successor Gov. Kathy Hochul — over migrant policies he called “madness. “The federal government has failed to manage the problem,” Cuomo told the largely black congregation at God’s Battalion of Prayer Church in Prospect Lefferts Garden, Brooklyn — a friendly audience that has welcomed the scandal-scarred thrice elected governor in the past. “The plain truth is New York City is...

Ex-Governor Andrew Cuomo urged New York Gov. Kathy Hochul to sue President Biden to recover the billions of dollars absorbed while grappling with the migrant “fiasco.” “The emperor has no clothes,” Cuomo said of Biden in the latest episode of his “As a Matter of Fact” podcast Cuomo repeatedly said the federal government headed by Biden is responsible for immigration and border enforcement, not New York City or the Empire State. “The states should sue the federal government for the entire fiasco,” he said. He likened Biden and fellow Democrats handling of the migrant crisis to “the army marching off...

Gov. Kathy Hochul on Sunday blamed the state’s soft-on-crime bail-reform mess on former boss Andrew Cuomo and Albany pols, claiming she “held the budget up” this year to fix it. Hochul said she has been fighting to reverse the controversial 2019 bail measures — while adding that the Big Apple is bouncing back from a post-pandemic crime wave to become one of the country’s safest big cities, even as New Yorkers flee the state. “People say they’re going to leave our state because it’s not safe,” the governor told host John Catsimatidis on WABC-770 radio’s “Cat’s Roundtable.” “Tell me the...

Mayor Eric Adams boisterously asserted he had “no idea” a grand jury had convened for the federal corruption probe into his campaign fundraising. “I don’t know, I’m not a lawyer. I’m Eric Adams — the mayor! Ex-cop!” Hizzoner told clambering reporters upon his arrival at the 39th Annual 116th Street Festival in East Harlem Saturday. “No idea. No idea. No idea,” he added as his team shot down further questions from the media.

New York City Councilwoman Shahana Hanif blasted Mayor Eric Adams (D) for his temporary tax-supported immigrant housing policies, suggesting instead that taxpayers pony up for permanent housing for immigrants. On Thursday, Hanif accused Adams of not wanting “New Yorkers to be happy” and denying them the chance to enjoy “permanent, dignified housing.” “The administration just does not want New Yorkers to be happy — plain and simple,” the Democrat told NY1. Adams has been working to enforce limits on shelter time for illegal aliens, threatening to evict them after 30 days for singles and 60 days for families. Adams began...

Mayor Eric Adams on Tuesday suggested migrants should be hired to fill the city’s lifeguard shortage — because “they’re excellent swimmers.” Hizzoner dropped the comment after being asked during a City Hall briefing about lifeguard staffing at the city’s beaches and pools, which have increasingly had issues in recent years, ahead of Memorial Day. Going off on a tangent, Adams indicated that Gotham’s lifeguard shortages could easily be fixed if migrant work visas were being expedited for those jobs that needed to be filled quickly. “How do we have a large body of people that are in our city, our...

'They're Excellent Swimmers': NYC Mayor Eric Adams Suggests Using 'Migrants' to Fill Lifeguard Shortage

“How do we have a large body of people that are in our city, our country, that are excellent swimmers and at the same time we need lifeguards.” A reporter asked New York City Mayor Eric Adams about the lack of lifeguards for the city’s beaches and pools. Going off on a tangent, Adams indicated that Gotham’s lifeguard shortages could easily be fixed if migrant work visas were being expedited for those jobs that needed to be filled quickly. SNIP The man didn’t stop. Apparently, Democrats think the people can only do certain jobs: “If we had a plan that...

Mayor Eric Adams is “not concerned” about disgraced former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo possibly eyeing his job. Asked if he thought Cuomo would make a run against him in 2025, Hizzoner told reporters he wasn’t sweating it. “[I’m] not concerned with that, I’m concerned with governing this amazing city,” Adams told said at an unrelated press briefing “You don’t spend 35 years climbing to the top of the mountain and worry about the view. You enjoy the view.”

During an interview with RUSA Radio on Friday, New York City Mayor Eric Adams (D) stated that “we have normalized antisemitism” in a way that wouldn’t be tolerated if it was directed towards another group and there’s been “acceptance even in some of our major media” and an attempt to downplay campus antisemitism. Adams said, “We’re witnessing a rise in hate across the globe in general, but specifically, after October 7, we witnessed a sharp increase in antisemitism, and we’re clear that New York City has no room for hate. If there’s antisemitism, anti-Sikhism, Islamophobia, anti-African Americans, no matter what...

In a continued effort to contain New York City's rat problem, Mayor Eric Adams announced Wednesday the inaugural National Urban Rat Summit. The summit, which will take place on Sept. 18 and 19, will gather the best in the rat business from Boston, New Orleans and Seattle to mitigate the spiraling rodent problem in the Big Apple, Adam's announced in a press release Wednesday.

New York City's Rikers Island is prepared if former President Donald Trump is ordered to serve time in jail amid his unprecedented trial in Manhattan, Mayor Eric Adams said Tuesday. "Our amazing commissioner … is prepared for whatever comes on Rikers Island," Adams told the media Tuesday when asked if Rikers, New York City's largest prison, is prepared if Trump is ordered to jail for violating a gag order imposed during the trial. "I'm pretty sure [the Department of Corrections commissioner] would be prepared to manage and deal with the situation. As you see what's happening with Harvey Weinstein, we...

ALBANY – Gov. Kathy Hochul and her husband, Bill, brought home much more bacon in 2023 than the year before. The couple made around $2 million in adjusted gross income in 2023, up a staggering $1 million from 2022, media reports covering the pair’s tax returns indicate. The tax return reportedly shows Hochul, who is in the second year of her first full term, and her husband paid $610,000 in federal taxes and $123,090 in state taxes.

Traffic safety advocates cheered a new law allowing the Big Apple to lower speed limits on city streets to as low as 10 miles per hour. The legislation – deemed “Sammy’s Law” in memory of 12-year-old Sammy Cohen Eckstein who was fatally struck by a van near his Park Slope home in 2013 – passed as part of the state budget last month. “This is a joyous but bittersweet moment,” Cohen Eckstein’s mother, Amy Cohen, said as she appeared at a press conference Thursday in Manhattan with Gov. Kathy Hochul and New York City Mayor Eric Adams. “Sammy was fierce...

Gov. Kathy Hochul is pushing a New York City tax hike to replace the $15 congestion pricing tolls she indefinitely postponed — a last-minute funding Hail Mary that drew fierce opposition Thursday. Lawmakers and business groups slammed the prospect of a tax increase, especially after Hochul scuttled congestion pricing Wednesday because it would “break the budget” for the working class. “Proposing another tax is an insulting joke that will only exacerbate the affordability crisis that Gov. Hochul pointed to as her reason for killing congestion pricing,” Assemblyman Matt Slater (R-Putnam) told The Post. “The combination of corporate income, payroll and...