Free Republic

While President Donald Trump attended big-money fundraisers for the Republican Party and his 2020 re-election campaign at mansions in Southampton and Bridgehampton on Friday, many of his East End supporters are eschewing the spotlight — especially after last week’s calls for boycotts of billionaire Stephen Ross’s fitness chains SoulCycle and Equinox because he hosted the president. “We are all in the closet,” said a boutique owner in Southampton who fears reprisals from his customers — most of them moneyed Democrats — if he speaks openly about his allegiance to Trump. “It’s like you have this disease and people want to...

Julio Santana dropped to his left knee and propped his right elbow on his hip, holding firm his hunting rifle until he had the man known as Yellow in his sights. It was Aug. 6, 1971, and Santana was 17 years old. In his village, deep in the Amazon rainforest where he lived in a hut with his parents and two brothers, he was known as a good shot. But he had only ever hunted forest rodents and monkeys for food. The man he was about to kill, Antonio Martins, was a 38-year-old fisherman with blonde hair and fair skin....

Amid her zeal to save the world with the Green New Deal, Rep. ­Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has ­ignored residents in her own Bronx back yard. “I thought AOC would be our savior, but that’s not the case,” complained Roxanne Delgado, a local activist who said she has tried for months to get in touch with the congresswoman for help saving an animal shelter and to clean up parks in the district. Delgado, 40, says she has made numerous calls to Ocasio-Cortez’s offices in Washington and Queens and sent a barrage of tweets after the freshman lawmaker encouraged residents during a recent...

For the world’s richest man, charity begins — and stays — at home. Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos has given only a tiny fraction of his $160 billion fortune to philanthropic causes, falling far behind fellow billionaires such as Bill and Melinda Gates and former New York mayor Michael Bloomberg, public records show. Although Bezos, 55, and his estranged wife MacKenzie recently pledged $2 billion to a new charitable initiative, their previous giving amounts to a total of just over $145 million or .0906 percent — far less than one percent — of their net worth. Out of $100,000,...

A nonprofit run by state lawmakers to raise scholarship money for needy minority students spends most of the cash on its lavish annual soiree — including $6,000 on limos — and gave out no grants the last two years, The Post has learned. The New York State Association of Black and Puerto Rican Legislators organizes a “Caucus Weekend” — a series of workshops, concerts and parties — in Albany every February for minority members of the Assembly and the Senate. The group charges sponsors up to $50,000 for a chance to party with lawmakers at events that have ­included Grammy...

These are the guns and knives Mayor de Blasio doesn’t want you to see. A surging tide of weapons — including loaded revolvers, 9mm handguns, meat cleavers and daggers — has been confiscated this year from students in city schools, most of which do not have metal detectors.

Doug Band's exit...marks the end of a complicated relationship w/ Band’s controversial company, Teneo. The Clinton Foundation is under fire for pocketing $$millions in donations for access, but Teneo’s role is less well-known.....described as a vast money-making machine. “...not just emblematic of how "Clinton Inc." works, it's the political and financial mess that's been created,” author Halper said. The New Republic noted the suspicious nature of Band’s work in 2013. “...an undertow of transactionalism in the glittering annual dinners, the fixation on celebrity and a contingent of donors whose charitable contributions and business interests occupy an uncomfortable proximity. Even more...

Food stamps are paying for trans-Atlantic takeout — with New Yorkers using taxpayer-funded benefits to ship food to relatives in Jamaica, Haiti and the Dominican Republic. Welfare recipients are buying groceries with their Electronic Benefit Transfer (EBT) cards and packing them in giant barrels for the trip overseas, The Post found.

<p>EXCLUSIVE Food stamps are paying to buy and ship food to Jamaica, Haiti and the Dominican Republic. A spokeswoman for the US Dept of Agriculture’s Food and Nutrition Service said the $86 BILLION welfare program is reserved for poor US households that buy and prepare food.</p>