Free Republic

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...

For a politician, nothing concentrates the mind like an upcoming election. New York Governor Kathy Hochul isn't up for reelection this year but she seems to remember the 2022 race in which Republicans flipped three House seats. This year she's trying to avoid that happening again. So this morning she suddenly announced she would do a 180 degree turn on New York's congestion pricing plan.“I have come to the difficult decision that implementing the planned congestion pricing system risks too many unintended consequences for New Yorkers this time,” Hochul said in a pre-taped statement released to reporters...“Once the congestion pricing...

Gov. Kathy Hochul ditched the MTA congestion pricing plan indefinitely Wednesday — saying it’s not the right time as New Yorkers face a cost-of-living crisis. Hochul announced plans to delay the $15 toll’s June 30 start date, citing the “undue strain on already stressed New Yorkers” grappling with inflation. “Let’s be real: a $15 charge may not mean a lot to someone who has the means, but it can break the budget of a working- or middle-class household,” she said in a pre-taped video announcement. “It puts the squeeze on the very people who make this city go. “I cannot...

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...

Gov. Kathy Hochul scuttled the congestion toll to enter Midtown because she believes too many people are afraid to take the subway so they drive in instead, ex-Gov. David Paterson said Sunday. “What she told me in a private conversation was she just thought about people who were afraid to ride the subways, so they drive their old car over the bridge, and they have to pay all this money,” Paterson said on 77 WABC radios’s “The Cats Roundtable.” “She was thinking really of individuals who would be affected. “Hochul realized that some of the problems that the antagonists to...

Gov. Kathy Hochul reportedly authorized payment of nearly $2 million in taxpayer money for outside ghostwriters to help draft her State of the State speeches. Most of the money was paid to Deloitte Consulting and the Boston Consulting Group to help the state’s first female governor shape her vision, according to the New York Times. Hochul’s office shelled out $871,000 on three outside firms to help prepare this year’s speech – with Boston Consulting Group racking up the largest amount of $838,000 for what it listed in records as “SOS support.” Representatives for three of Hochul’s predecessors — fellow Democrats...

--SNIP-- COVID-19 and Black Lives Matter are helping rational people realize LeBron, Alyssa Milano, Lena Dunham, Steve Kerr, Amy Schumer, Colin Kaepernick, Aaron Paul, CardiB, Meek Mill and Jimmy Kimmel all need to shut up and entertain. They’re not thought leaders. They’re court jesters pretending to be world leaders. Let’s defund them. Seriously. I don’t want to eliminate them. I like to be entertained. I just think it’s a huge mistake to pretend CardiB is important. She’s a stripper-turned-rap music-pornographer. She’s Hugh Hefner, not Michelle Obama with a boobjob. Let’s give entertainers a special designation in our tax codes. Tax...

ALBANY, N.Y. -- Environmental groups and energy companies both claimed victory after Gov. David Paterson ordered a seven-month moratorium on some natural gas drilling in the state, although environmentalists would have preferred the broader ban that the Legislature had approved. The outgoing Democratic governor vetoed a bill on Saturday that would have suspended all new natural-gas drilling permits until May 15. Instead, he issued an executive order prohibiting high-volume hydraulic fracturing of horizontally drilled wells, such as those in the Marcellus Shale region of southern New York. The order stands until July 1...

ALBANY, N.Y. (Associated Press) -- An unfolding scandal threatening Gov. David Paterson and his administration claimed its second public safety official Tuesday when the head of the New York State Police casually told a television reporter that he was retiring, partly because of intense media scrutiny. Superintendent Harry Corbitt had acknowledged in February that a State Police official had contact with a woman who had accused a top Paterson aide of assaulting her on Halloween in New York City's Bronx borough. Soon after, the woman dropped the domestic violence complaint against the aide, David Johnson.

Of all the names floated around out there, Suozzi is the least radically left. Of course, I'd like Paterson to pick someone like John Faso, but I know that's not going to happen. When Tom Suozzi ran against Eliott Spitzer in the gubernatorial primaries, cutting property taxes was high on his list, Suozzzi opposed gay marriage, and backed a ban on late-term abortion.

Elitism: Is Democratic New York Gov. David Paterson his own man? If he is, he'll appoint an accomplished leader as senator. If he isn't, he'll kowtow to the party bosses and pick . . . a Kennedy.When the Empire State's legally-blind governor made a huge stink this week about an NBC "Saturday Night Live" skit that lampooned him, was he just conniving to convince New Yorkers how independent and determined he is — prior to caving in on Caroline Kennedy? In the days since Gov. Paterson was depicted by comic Fred Armisen as confused and disoriented, holding charts upside down...

The junior senator has the support of Republican colleagues Rand Paul and Sen. Ted Cruz on a measure to overhaul how the military handles sexual assault allegations. Her work has garnered praise from GOP members as a Democrat they’d like to work with and is helping her own set of issues in Washington.,/i> WASHINGTON — It was a head-turning sight on Capitol Hill. There was Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, a New York Democrat, standing with firebrand Republican Sens. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Rand Paul (R-Ky.) to showcase their support of her measure to overhaul how the military handles sexual assault allegations....

Sen. David Vitter (R-La.) wants answers from the US taxpayer supported Export-Import bank about a $2 billion loan to Brazil for offshore drilling. Vitter’s home state is suffering under a moratorium imposed by President Barack Obama. Vitter said Louisianians “are frustrated” and he wants to know “why permitting domestically is nearly stalled…” Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) had questions about ExIM—nine years ago when he asked Congress to reject the reauthorization of ExIm for “economic, constitutional and moral reasons.” Vitter sent a letter to Fred Hochberg, Ex-Im president, on March 17. Vitter asked Hochberg to identify all US companies that have...

ALBANY — Aides to New York’s first African-American governor wanted a police entourage that looked more like their boss, so they made an unusual request to the State Police: Replace at least 10 white troopers assigned to protect Gov. David A. Paterson with black or Latino officers. The request prompted an extraordinary battle between the Paterson administration and leaders of the State Police shortly after Mr. Paterson, a Democrat, took office in 2008, according to court testimony, e-mails and interviews. Preston L. Felton, at the time the acting superintendent of the State Police and the first African-American to lead the...

Democrat personality David Paterson, former governor of New York and now a talk-radio host on WOR in New York City, has suggested Barack Obama could be ineligible for the Oval Office and “got away” with it. And Paterson linked Obama’s actions to treason. On his show yesterday, he was asserting, along with NBC Chief White House Correspondent Chuck Todd, that GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney should have distanced himself more from developer Donald Trump and his doubts about Obama’s eligibility. “Even if he wasn’t born in the United States at this point,” Paterson said. “It’s kind of like he got...

Gov. David A. Paterson of New York on Saturday vetoed legislation intended to curtail natural gas development using the technique called hydraulic fracturing until a closer review of its effects can be undertaken. Instead, the governor issued an executive order instituting a moratorium that extends until July 1, 2011 — beyond the date specified in the legislation — and that more narrowly defines the types of drilling to be restricted. “This legislation, which was well intentioned, would have a serious impact on our state if signed into law,” Mr. Paterson said in a prepared statement. “Enacting this legislation would put...

New York Gov. David Paterson, a Democrat, is conceding that Republicans "probably" have won control of the New York state Senate, which GOP leaders say has important implications for the long-term balance of power in the U.S. House of Representatives. No official winner has been named in three senate races in the Empire State. Republicans lead in two of those outstanding contests. New York Republicans, including the current minority leader, Sen. Dean G. Skelos, have said they expect to take over the Legislative gavel in the next session. According to a Friday report in the New York Post, Paterson told...

Chaos and anarchy. That's what New York Gov. David Paterson is warning if he's forced to shut down the government in a few days. The clowns in the state Legislature, now deadlocked for 71 days on the budget, are ready to take down the "big tent" and bring state government to a standstill. At least that's what Paterson thinks. "No one knows the full ramifications of a government shutdown," said Paterson. "It would create unimaginable chaos around the state and the greater metropolitan areas." Such chaos includes closing all state parks, motor vehicles offices, courts, and even the lottery. Public...

Gov. David Paterson's press secretary is resigning, making her the fourth top staffer to resign amid scandals that threaten the administration. Press Secretary Marissa Shorenstein says she is quitting because her reported role in one of the scandals makes her unable to do her job effectively... Paterson's communications director, deputy public safety secretary and state police superintendent have also resigned.