Before Bill Clinton walked onto the stage in the Hilton Hotel’s third-floor ballroom, he stood in the wings as the president of the International Association of Fire Fighters praised him for nearly six minutes.
“Simply put,” said I.A.F.F. general president Harold Schaitberger, Mr. Clinton is “the kind of leader American workers need more of holding office today at every level of government.” Read More
A political consultant has contacted the police after receiving a voice message from a man who said Democrat David Weprin's "days are numbered."
Consultant Mary Simon was Weprin's finance director up until a month ago. She said she received the call on her cell phone Wednesday afternoon and alerted the State Troopers in the capital, along with Weprin's family and district office. Read More
No one in News Corp.’s New York headquarters knew quite what to do when the pie landed on Rupert Murdoch.
“The newsroom stopped,” said one person inside the Wall Street Journal offices at the time, where the hearing was being broadcast on the televisions in the bullpen.
Outside, two NYPD cars were parked directly opposite of the building’s main entrance on Avenue of the Americas, while a CNN reporter filmed a report with Mr. Murdoch’s flagship building in the background. Inside, Mr. Murdoch’s operations tried to carry on: Fox News ran the London hearing live, and the Journal reporters—upon recovering—prepared a front-page story for the next morning.
But the pie-stained moment—which included Mr. Murdoch’s wife, Wendi Deng, slapping the assailant, and his son, James, complaining to the police—was, in many ways, tailor-made for Mr. Murdoch’s favorite local outlet, the tabloid he had twice bought and most closely resembles the embodiment of his life’s work: Turning dry dispassionate reports of government bodies into dramatic, personal narratives of powerful men and business elites behaving badly. And yet, if any Murdoch news outlet had something resembling an emotional desire to protect the 80-year-old Australian on what he called the “most humble” day of his life, it was the New York Post, the money-losing property that has long felt like a physical extension of its doting owner. The Post ran the story on page 35. Read More
When Republican State Senator Jim Alesi was introduced at the Human Rights Campaign party Tuesday night, celebrating last week's passage of same-sex marriage, the audience exploded with cheers and applause. "That's exactly what it sounded like when I went to church on Sunday," he said. The audience burst into laughter. Alesi didn't need to explain Read More
Republicans will meet later today to decide whether the State Senate will have a vote on same-sex marriage, which currently is one vote shy of the 32 votes needed to pass.
“We’re going to conference the language of the amendments,” said Republican Senate Leader Dean Skelos after meeting privately with Governor Cuomo.
Asked if he was obligated to present the vote during business hours, instead of late at night when, presumably, less public attention would be paid to the issue, Skelos demurred.
“I’m not going to work under time constraints,” he said, predicting the 32-member GOP conference would be “lengthy.”
For weeks, Cuomo has met privately with a handful of Republican Senators who wanted to see greater protections for religiously affiliated organizations who do not want to recognize or do business with gay couples. Cuomo has said he has faced “no obstacles” with Republicans.
On Monday afternoon, activists on both sides of the same-sex marriage debate flooded the third floor of the State Capitol, toting handmade signs, chanting rhyming slogans and singing religious songs in the fervent belief that after this week nothing would ever be the same.
“If this passes, we will have Sodom and Gomorrah, literalized,” said Read More
Anthony Weiner’s Republican opponents would seem to have one obvious advantage should they choose to challenge the embattled congressman in 2012: their to-date failure to distribute compromising photos of themselves (or parts of themselves) over the Internet. Read More
On a recent Tuesday afternoon, outside a firehouse on the north shore of Staten Island, Bill de Blasio slipped between a throng of sweaty, angry protesters and was quickly ushered to a microphone stand.
“This mayor loves to brag how devoted he is to the numbers,” said Mr. de Blasio. “This is the fastest growing Read More
Erin Einhorn, the new City Hall bureau chief for the Daily News, can seem confrontational even when she’s being polite.
Take last month, when she referred to the City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, as “ma’am” at a press conference, prompting a testy reply: “You can call me Speaker.” Ms. Quinn was still smarting from a Read More
Just after 4 p.m. last Thursday, several New York City political reporters received an odd telephone call at their desks and on their cell phones.
“During your next election,” insisted a woman’s recorded voice, “when you are choosing which consultant to help you with your campaign mail, remember that Jim Spencer and the Campaign Network Read More
