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De Blasio: The Left’s New Star in Washington

bill_blasio-300x3003New York Mayor Bill de Blasio on Tuesday launched a liberal policy agenda he’s hoping will guide the political debate — and heighten his national profile — heading into 2016.

Speaking outside the Capitol on a sweltering day, de Blasio announced an economic plan designed to alleviate income inequality through 13 specific policy prescriptions favored by the left, including a $15 federal minimum wage, comprehensive immigration reform and universal child care for working mothers.

The mayor — flanked by a host of Democratic lawmakers, labor leaders, immigration reformers and other liberal activists — said the agenda turns on a simple notion: “We need to reward work,” he said, “not wealth.”

“Something is changing in America. It’s time to take that energy and crystallize it into an agenda that will make a difference,” he said. “We’ll be calling on leaders and candidates to address these issues, to stiffen their backbones, to be clear and to champion these progressive policies.”

The launch came just hours after de Blasio appeared with Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) at a separate economic event in Washington, bolstering his status as an influential liberal voice who might hold sway on the presidential campaign of Hillary Clinton — the Democratic favorite he has refused to endorse. (Read more from “De Blasio: The Left’s New Star in Washington” HERE)

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Banner Around NYC Calls for Mayor de Blasio to ‘Get Off the Pot’

By Bruce Golding. The latest pro-cop banner to fly over New York City blasted Mayor Bill de Blasio on Tuesday morning with a sly reference to his admitted past drug use.

“DE BLASIO GET OFF THE POT. RESIGN. WE ♥ NYPD,” the aerial message read.

De Blasio — who infamously appeared bleary-eyed and baked in his college yearbook photo — last week denied smoking pot inside Gracie Mansion in response to a question posed at a news conference.

“I haven’t smoked marijuana since I was at NYU,” he said to chuckles from his aides.

An organizer behind the high-flying dig at Hizzoner insisted the banner was aimed only at prompting a decision by de Blasio to abandon City Hall — and that any allusion to drugs was unintentional. (Read more about the banner around NYC HERE)

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Tempers Flare at PBA Meeting Where Patrick Lynch Says De Blasio Owes an Apology

By Rocco Parascandola. Shouting and shoving erupted among cops at a tense Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association meeting in Queens on Tuesday, according to union sources.

Tempers flared toward the end of the nearly two-hour session at Antun’s in Queens Village when some members began yelling at PBA President Patrick Lynch over his declaration that Mayor de Blasio owes cops an apology.

“This is what my members want: they want more cars, better vests, more manpower,” one cop shouted, according to the sources. “They don’t want an apology.”

Another union member told Lynch: “I don’t care about an apology. I want to know what you’re going to do to protect us.”

Lynch said he disagreed about the importance of an apology, according to the sources. (Read more from this story HERE)

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Secret Past of Mayor de Blasio Comes to Light

By Aaron Klein. Largely unreported in the news coverage of the recent race-related demonstrations is that New York Mayor Bill de Blasio has a history of working with extremist activist groups to stir protests.

Further, de Blasio has a largely unreported history with the controversial Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, or ACORN.

ACORN’s renamed group, the New York Communities for Change, is one of the organizations helping to lead the protests over the death of Eric Garner, who was killed by police in July.

De Blasio has been accused by critics, including New York police officers, of helping to fuel racial tension between police and protesters.

One of the major anti-police protests in New York that received media attention was an attempt to shut down Manhattan’s Fifth Avenue shopping district before Christmas. (Read more from “The Past of Mayor de Blasio Comes to Light” HERE)

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De Blasio Boots Judge Who was Tough on Criminals

By Jamie Schram. A Manhattan judge known for being tough on criminals has been booted from the bench by Mayor Bill de Blasio — even against the ­advice of his own vetting team, law enforcement sources told The Post on Tuesday.

The move comes on the heels of de Blasio’s reappointment of Brooklyn Judge Laura Johnson, who set free without bail two men who threatened to kill cops just days after a double police assassination.

The booted judge, Diana Boyar, “was fair, knowledgeable and ran the courtroom professionally,” a stunned source said. (Read more from this story HERE)

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NYPD Officers Turn Backs on de Blasio, Again

By Peter Holley. Police, public officials and mourners from across the country gathered Sunday to honor a detective killed last month in an act of violence that has roiled New York City, with a large number of officers again making their frustrations with the city’s mayor apparent by turning their backs on him as he paid tribute to the slain officer.

Defying a request from Police Commissioner William Bratton, the strident display of protest began as Mayor Bill de Blasio took the podium at the Aievoli Funeral Home in Brooklyn to eulogize Detective Wenjian Liu, reinforcing entrenched feelings of hostility that have gripped the department in the weeks since Liu and Detective Rafael Ramos were fatally shot without warning on a Brooklyn street.

In highly controversial remarks, union leaders have criticized the mayor for expressing support for demonstrations against police brutality and accused him of fostering an environment that encourages attacks on police officers. (Read more about the officers turn backs on de Blasio HERE)

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Atrocious Anti-Cop Editorial: Still No Apology from New York Times

By David Asman. The New York Times is clearly feeling the heat over an atrocious editorial they published on Tuesday blaming New York City cops for feelings of “self-pity” and “victimhood” after two of New York’s finest were gunned down in cold blood as they sat in their patrol car.

The editorial, published just three days after the funeral of one of those cops, was not only offensive to the sensibilities of New Yorkers who are grateful to our “men in blue,” it was absolutely heartless in its timing. This was an editorial venal enough to rankle even liberal New Yorkers. . .

While I obviously don’t have access to phone records or emails between the mayor’s office and the Times’ editorial board, the mayor’s push with allies on Sunday and Monday and the editorial’s appearance on Tuesday seems more than coincidental. (Read more from this story HERE)

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Anti-Cop Protesters Fail to Disrupt New Year’s in Times Square

Photo Credit: Breitbart

Photo Credit: Breitbart

By Kerry Picket. The demonstrators marched from Union Square to 38th and Broadway, where they were prohibited from going any further uptown towards the celebration when the clock struck 12. Protesters were beckoned by the organization Stop Mass Incarceration to participate in the march on New Year’s Eve.

The New York Police Department passed out flyers to protesters at Union Square telling the marchers that they must walk on the sidewalk during their march and not go into the streets and block vehicle traffic. A recording that looped numerous times played the NYPD flyer’s message through a loudspeaker during the night.

By 10 p.m., about 100 protesters began walking up 6th Avenue toward Times Square as NYPD officers controlled the direction of the march. Police diverted the group as they approached 33rd street in Herald Square.

“NYPD – KKK, how many kids did you kill today?” protesters yelled, as they carried “I can’t breathe” signs, referencing the last words of Eric Garner as NYPD officers held him in a headlock after he resisted arrest. (Read more about the anti-cop protesters fail to disrupt NYC New Year’s Eve HERE)

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De Blasio Slaps NYPD in the Face on the Last Day of 2014

By Laurel Babcock, Kirstan Conley and Bruce Golding. Mayor de Blasio delivered another blow to New York’s Finest on Wednesday when he reappointed a Brooklyn judge who freed without bail two men who threatened cops just days after the Bed-Stuy double police assassination.

The stunning decision came even as one of the suspects — a gang member charged with posting police death threats online — skipped out on a court date and had a warrant out for his arrest, sources said.

Brooklyn Criminal Court Judge Laura Johnson had faced a midnight expiration of her term. She was appointed by Mayor Mike Bloomberg in January 2013.

Her one-year, interim reappointment by de Blasio outraged law-enforcement officials a day after he met with the heads of five police unions to heal his fractured relationship with cops.

“The mayor’s actions of reappointing this judge are completely hypocritical to his argument that he’s pro-police and counterproductive to what he claims to be an effort to open dialogue going forward,” said sergeants union chief Ed Mullins. (Read more from this story HERE)

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Suspect Who Threatened to Kill Cops on Youtube Fatally Shot (+video)

Photo Credit: Free Patriot

Photo Credit: Free Patriot

By Jason Howerton. Police officers fatally shot a suspect in Drexel Hill, Pennsylvania, on Tuesday night after he allegedly tried to “run down a couple cops” with his vehicle.

Officers were initially attempting to arrest the man for making terroristic threats against law enforcement officials in rants posted on YouTube, according to police.

Upper Darby Police Superintendent Michael Chitwood told reporters officers were trying to serve an arrest warrant at a home in Clifton, Pennsylvania, when they saw the suspect leaving the scene, according to WPVI-TV. Officers pursued the suspect, but they tried to stop him in his vehicle, he allegedly tried to run over the cops.

It was reported that several officers fired shots at the suspect, killing him. Officers with the Clifton Heights, Upper Darby and Haverford Police Departments were reportedly involved in the incident, which unfolded at around 4:35 p.m. on Tuesday. (Read more about the suspect who threatened to kill cops HERE)

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NYC Mayor de Blasio’s Pick for NYPD Oversight Board Linked to Group in Cop-Killer Video

By Evin Gahr. The lawyer who chairs the New York City agency responsible for investigating police brutality allegations has ties to the federally funded legal-aid group featured in a cop-killer video.

Richard Emery, chairman of the city’s Civilian Complaint Review Board and his own civil-rights law firm, told The Daily Signal that any perceived conflict of interest is absurd.

Bronx Defenders, which received at least $1.5 million from the Obama Justice Department since 2009, says on its website that assistance from Emery’s firm, Emery Celli Brinckerhoff and Abady, “makes the work we do possible.” (Read more from this story HERE)

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NYC Mayor Booed, Called 'Traitor' at NYPD Graduation Ceremony

nypd officersBy Michael Zennie. New York Mayor Bill de Blasio was booed today by the newest members of the New York Police Department as he delivered a speech at the academy graduation ceremony.

Several boos could be heard at Madison Square Garden as de Blasio took the podium in front of 884 newly-minted cops.

At least one cadet could be heard shouting ‘traitor!’ the New York Post reports.

Then, when de Blasio remarked that the new officers would be confronted with problems they didn’t make, someone from the crowd shouted, ‘You created them!’ The heckler was met with applause and cheering. (Read more about the story, “NYC Mayor Booed” HERE)

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NYPD Officers Turning a Blind Eye to Minor Crimes

By Dave Sherfinski. In the wake of the murders of two police officers in New York, some NYPD cops are letting minor crimes slide and a two-car response directive from the police union is hindering response times, according to the New York Post.

An NYPD supervisor told the Post that his policemen are writing almost no summonses and “probably only making arrests when they have to – like when a store catches a shoplifter.”

The Post said the officers were behaving in a “scared” after two of their colleagues were assassinated while sitting in a patrol car two weeks ago.

The Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association’s directive for police to respond with at least two patrol cars is also creating a manpower shortage that’s delaying response times to non-emergencies like burglaries or car crashes to as much as four hours, according to the paper. (Read more from this story HERE)

Sowell: The Left Versus Minorities

Photo Credit: Matthew Kenwrick / Creative CommonsIf anyone wanted to pick a time and place where the political left’s avowed concern for minorities was definitively exposed as a fraud, it would be now — and the place would be New York City, where far left Mayor Bill de Blasio has launched an attack on charter schools, cutting their funding, among other things.

These schools have given thousands of low income minority children their only shot at a decent education, which often means their only shot at a decent life. Last year 82 percent of the students at a charter school called Success Academy passed city-wide mathematics exams, compared to 30 percent of the students in the city as a whole.

Why would anybody who has any concern at all about minority young people — or even common decency — want to destroy what progress has already been made?

One big reason, of course, is the teachers’ union, one of Mayor de Blasio’s biggest supporters. But it may be more than that. For many of the true believers on the left, their ideology overrides any concern about the actual fate of flesh-and-blood human beings.

Something similar happened on the west coast last year. The American Indian Model Schools in Oakland have been ranked among the top schools in the nation, based on their students’ test scores. This is, again, a special achievement for minority students who need all the help they can get.

Read more this story HERE.

Roker’s Forecast For NYC Mayor de Blasio: ‘1 Term’

NBC Today Show Weatherman Al Roker went on a Twitter tirade Thursday against New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio over his handling of the snowstorm and school closures in the city.

Photo Credit: Al Roker Twitter Page

Late Thursday morning Roker made his own Twitter forecast especially for de Blasio, “Talk about a bad prediction. Long range DiBlasio (sic) forecast: 1 term.”

Read more from this story HERE.

Watchdog: NYC Mayor’s Race Could Affect School Choice

Photo Credit: ijreviewNew York City’s public charter schools are at stake in November’s mayoral election.

While Democrat candidate Bill de Blasio says he will charge rent to the 108 charter schools running in Department of Education-owned buildings — which charter school proponents and operators say would be devastating — Republican candidate Joe Lhota plans to double the number of charter schools and allow them to continue running rent-free.

Neither campaign returned repeated calls for comment.

New York City’s 183 charter schools, which accept students based on a lottery drawing, serve 70,000 students.

Read more from this story HERE.