Free Republic

ALBANY – Gov. Kathy Hochul is exploring building a new 3,000-bed state prison — the largest in New York — in a baffling reverse-of-course after shuttering numerous correctional facilities. The state Corrections Department is seeking proposals to construct the massive proposed $750 million facility somewhere in the state, according to stunning documents released this week and obtained by The Post. “The proposed facility will include approximately 3,000 beds, multiple new housing and support buildings, security systems, and significant site and utility infrastructure improvements,” the documents said. As to where the new prison might be located, the documents only said it...

The families of 9/11 victims opposed to Zohran Mamdani’s attendance at the 25th anniversary memorial have received celebrity support. Banging his gavel in the name of respect for the 2,977 lives lost on September 11, 2001, Adam Levy, son of world-renowned Judge Judith “Judy” Sheindlin, and star jurist of forthcoming CBS series “Adam’s Law,” is unabashedly backing the throng of protestors who’ve called for Mamdani’s exclusion from this year’s annual remembrance ceremony at Ground Zero, Friday, at 8:46 a.m. “Don’t show up at this memorial when you’ve supported radical Islam in the past,” Levy raged to The Post about Hizzoner....

Republican Bruce Blakeman could pull off a stunning upset in New York’s closely watched governor’s race — with the conservative challenger just four points behind Democratic incumbent Gov. Kathy Hochul in a new poll. Hochul only leads the underdog and current Nassau County executive 49.6% to 45.7% among likely voters, according to the survey conducted by McLaughlin & Associates for the Blakeman campaign. The remaining 4.7% of likely voters are undecided, the poll, based on interviews with 800 likely voters from Aug. 27-31, shows. The nail-bitingly close results reflect growing dissatisfaction with Hochul’s ability to lead the Empire State. More...

NEW YORK, NY — Governor Kathy Hochul desperately tried to warn New Yorkers that Republicans were taking away women's rights, but no one in the room could hear her because her mouth was covered by a hijab. With the hijab making Hochul's voice sound like the muffled groans of the teacher from Charlie Brown cartoons, New Yorkers remained tragically ignorant of the threat that Republicans pose to women's freedom. "Bwahh-bwahhh. Gllll. Merrrr," said Hochul, waving her arms frantically. Attendees and members of the media were bewildered. "Huh. Wonder what she's saying under there," said local man Hamza Malik. "Seems like...

Gov. Kathy Hochul and Mayor Zohran Mamdani on Tuesday complained President Donald Trump has failed to fulfill an 11-month-old promise to restore millions in federal funding to New York’s homeland security operations. Trump said on Truth Social last year he had reversed cuts that took New York’s federal counterterrorism budget from $287 million down to $30 million, but Hochul said Tuesday New York was still $87 million short. “Shame on you for withholding this money, not delivering it to me right now, 10 days before we honor those lives that were lost on 9/11,” Hochul said during a news conference...

Conservatives slammed Gov. Kathy Hochul for wearing a headscarf during a visit to an Islamic center in New York City over the weekend. The Democratic governor wore a charcoal gray suit and a black scarf mirroring those many Muslim women don to symbolize modesty and their religious faith, according to a clip of the appearance at the Islamic Cultural Center of New York in Queens. Hochul addressed the congregants during the weekly Friday Jummah prayer service, giving a shout out to “his excellency” Tareq Albanai — the United Nation’s permanent representative for Kuwait — thanking him for welcoming her to...

Drive from Buffalo into Genesee County and you will pass fields that have grown corn and soybeans for generations. Soon, thousands of those acres will be covered by steel and glass. New York state is forcing industrial-scale solar plants onto rural communities that never asked for them, and the people who live there are discovering just how little their voice counts when a governor decides differently. The Mandate Behind The Mess.. New York is tearing up rural communities, wiping out wildlife sanctuaries, and burying prime agricultural soil under solar installation in the name of green energy. The root of this...

New York Democrats have driven one of the state’s major donors into the arms of Republicans... billionaire James Dolan, owner of the NBA champion New York Knicks, has spearheaded an effort to pour millions of dollars into Republican Bruce Blakeman’s gubernatorial campaign. In 2022, Dolan backed Blakeman’s opponent, Democrat Gov. Kathy Hochul. Now, in conjunction with his company and with family members, Dolan has given so much money to pro-Blakeman committees and super PACs that he stands as New York state’s single largest GOP donor. New York Conservative Party Chair Jerry Kassar offered one explanation for the billionaire’s apparent shift....

Voters Say Hochul Better on Increasing Affordable Housing By 16 Points & Making Prices More Affordable by 7 Points; She Narrowly Leads on Keeping NYers Safe, Developing NY’s Energy Future & Addressing Undocumented Immigrants Living in NY On Each of 4 Character Traits, Blakeman’s Net Score Beats Hochul’s Net Score: ‘Tough,’ ‘In Touch with Average NYers,’ ‘Honest,’ and ‘Gets Things Done’ NYS Attorney General: James 54% – Komatireddy 36% State Comptroller: DiNapoli 56% – Hernandez 32% Congressional Generic Ballot: Democrat 54% – Republican 38% Democratic Governor Kathy Hochul leads Republican Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman 49-39%, according to a new...

Republican gubernatorial candidate Bruce Blakeman told Democrats to get over it after party leaders filed a complaint against him for a series of AI campaign ads. Blakeman said he’d continue to use artificial intelligence ads despite a complaint to the Board of Elections from state Democratic Party chairman Jay Jacobs that accused the GOP candidate of violating state law by not disclosing the use of the tech in some of the ads. “Everybody knows it’s AI, and it’s funny — so what’s your problem? Get a life,” Blakeman, who is currently serving as Nassau County executive, said during a campaign...

Kathy Hochul received $55,000 in campaign contributions from social adult daycare centers (SADCs) in fraud-plagued Flushing, Queens, records show. Almost half of those donations can be linked to two men: local powerbroker Baoli Zhang, and Jiemin Shang — who own two of Flushing’s biggest daycare businesses, both of which were empty of patients when visited by The Post last week. Zhang, 69, personally donated $10,000, as well as another $5,000 through his Bao Kang Adult Day Care, financial disclosures show. Zhang’s various businesses have claimed at least $32 million from Medicaid since 2018, on behalf of tens of thousands of...

Gov. Kathy Hochul leads her Republican opponent Bruce Blakeman by just 4 percentage points, according to a bombshell new poll. Just 47% of those surveyed said they’d back the Democratic incumbent, compared to 43% who supported the Nassau County executive, with 10% of registered voters undecided, the poll, conducted by a pro-Blakeman super PAC found. Only 38% of respondents said they viewed Hochul favorably — and 58% unfavorably — in a survey of 2,000 registered voters conducted by pollster Red Oak Strategic for the “Strong and Safe” super PAC. Meanwhile, only 39% of voters approved of Hochul’s job performance compared...

The day after Pervez Siddiqui’s adult day care center was raided by the FBI last year, the pharmacist headed to a fundraiser for Mayor Zohran Mamdani at the home of the top adviser on Medicaid affairs in the Pakistani-American community. Ijaz Ahmad, 50, a Pakistani-American cardiologist and healthcare entrepreneur with a sprawling home in Nassau County, advises his fellow countrymen on setting up community healthcare facilities, which rake in tens of millions in Medicaid cash. He also introduces them to the city’s most powerful lawmakers at his 10,000 square foot residence in Old Westbury, according to a source in the...

ALBANY — Gov. Kathy Hochul is once again stamping her feet, accusing federal immigration authorities of overreach for allegedly planning to expand detention facilities in upstate New York. In a letter to US Department of Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin, Hochul is demanding answers from ICE about a rumored lease on a warehouse in the Hudson Valley near Newburgh, as well as plans to expand detention capacity at federal facilities in Rochester and Batavia. “New Yorkers, like all Americans, deserve honest answers about what their federal government is doing in their communities. And I demand your department provide that transparency,”...

New York Governor Kathy Hochul (D) is putting sanctuary priorities ahead of public safety, this time by dangling technology upgrade grants in front of local police agencies—but only if they agree to limit cooperation with federal immigration authorities. Hochul, speaking in Long Island earlier in the week, explained that $75 million of a total $100 million in grants would be tied directly to compliance with the state’s “Local Cops, Local Crimes Act." The act, passed by the state legislature in May, effectively pressures sheriffs and departments to keep their hands off helping ICE with raids and detentions by ending 287(g)...

This week in Mullin v. Doe, a 6-3 majority of the US Supreme Court ruled that the temporary protected status granted to immigrants from Haiti in 2010 could be discontinued by the Trump Administration. Writing for the majority, Justice Samuel Alito asserted that "a temporary status initiated by a previous administration can be terminated by a later administration if it determines that the conditions justifying the original decision have changed. In this case, the temporary protection was initiated due to an earthquake in Haiti." In her dissenting opinion, Justice Elena argued that "the original temporary protection order was put in...

Gov. Kathy Hochul has quietly extended a pilot program providing free healthcare to sex workers – with taxpayers footing the nearly $2.5 million bill. The state Health Department in 2023 awarded $1 million in public funds to two contractors as part of Hochul’s plan to help the “world’s oldest profession,” but new documents reviewed by The Post show the program extending through June 2028, with $1.5 million more in costs. Under the initiative, sex workers in NYC and the Buffalo area will continue to receive primary, sexual, behavioral, and dental care. Critics bashed the hooker healthcare program — which was...

The Trump administration is reportedly preparing a major surge of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents into New York City, escalating a growing confrontation with Democrat Gov. Kathy Hochul over President Donald Trump's immigration crackdown. Trump border czar Tom Homan revealed Monday that the administration has already drawn up an operational plan and warned Hochul before she signed legislation late last month restricting ICE activities and banning masked immigration agents in New York. "You're going to see more ICE than you've ever seen in New York City, and it's coming," Homan said, according to Bloomberg. "I just reviewed an operational plan....

Mom’s not the word. New York state Democrats passed a bill to erase words like “mother” and “father” from Family Court Law — in the latest gender-neutral rewriting in the state’s official records. “Mother” would be replaced with “gestating parent” while “father” becomes “non-gestating parent” and “paternity” proceedings would become “parentage” proceedings under the woke bill that was rammed through both houses of the state legislature this week. A “putative father” in paternity proceedings would now be defined as “an alleged parent” under the bill, which was sponsored by liberals Sen. Luis Sepulveda (D-Bronx) and Assemblywoman Amy Paulin (D-Westchester) and...

On social media Friday, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy identified the driver as 48-year-old Jing Dong, a naturalized U.S. citizen from China who received his CDL from New York State. Duffy said Dong does not speak English.