Free Republic

Abuse Of Power: The IRS scandal seemingly has lain dormant now for months, all but forgotten amid the spate of recent anti-Trump media spasms, the ongoing violent antics of the antifa leftists and, now, Hurricane Harvey's devastation. But even if much of Washington has forgotten about it, a Washington judge hasn't. As reported by the Washington Examiner, Judge Reggie B. Walton of the Washington, D.C., District Court last week revived legal attention to the scandal, telling the IRS it has to reveal the names of IRS employees who targeted conservative, libertarian and Tea Party groups. But Walton didn't stop there....

A case just decided by the Tenth Circuit shows how utterly absurd the “war on drugs” has become, how petty and power-mad the police can be, and how blindly deferential some of our federal judges are. The case, Harte v. Johnson County Board of Commissioners, arose out of an idiotic, military-style raid by Kansas police on the home of Robert and Adlynn Harte in 2012. They were not in any way involved with drugs (particularly marijuana), but a few officers came to the conclusion that they might be. Here’s how. One August day in 2011, Mr. Harte and his two...

Republican Gov. Chris Christie signed a law Friday making New Jersey the third state to raise its smoking age to 21. Christie cited the strain on the health care system caused by tobacco-related illnesses. He also noted his mother died from the effects of smoking. "By raising the minimum age to purchase tobacco products to 21, we are giving young people more time to develop a maturity and better understanding of how dangerous smoking can be and that it is better to not start smoking in the first place," Christie wrote.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions today announced a new Department of Justice policy regarding the federal adoption of assets seized by state or local law enforcement under state law. The Department’s new policy strengthens the civil asset forfeiture program to better protect victims of crime and innocent property owners, while streamlining the process to more easily dismantle criminal and terrorist organizations. The policy and guidelines were formulated after extensive consultation with the Task Force on Crime Reduction and Public Safety, as well as line Assistant United States Attorneys, career officials in the Criminal Division’s Money Laundering and Asset Recovery Section (MLARS),...

U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions said the Justice Department will issue new directives to increase the federal govenment's use of civil asset forfeiture, a controversial practice that allows law enforcement to seize property from suspected criminals without charging them with a crime. Speaking at a National District Attorneys Association conference in Minneapolis Monday, Sessions said state and local law enforcement could expect changes from U.S. Attorneys in several areas: increased prosecution of gun crimes, immigration offenses, gang activity, and prescription drug abuse, as well as increased asset seizure by the federal government.

The New York attorney general says Kenneth Griepp was 15 feet from an abortion clinic. He went to federal court this week to try to push him an extra foot away. Attorney General Eric Schneiderman also admitted to having investigators scour social media and track license plates of pro-life protesters, helping to build his case against 14 protesters he said were getting too close to the Choices Women’s Medical Center, a women’s health and abortion clinic located in Jamaica, Queens, on a weekly basis since 2012. Mr. Schneiderman’s lawsuit filed Tuesday says the protesters, who are members of different churches...

LOS ANGELES (KABC) -- A Southern California family says they were kicked off an overbooked Delta airplane because they refused to yield a seat held by their young son. The Schear family of Huntington Beach says they were flying from Hawaii to Los Angeles last week when airline staff asked them to give up a seat occupied by their 2-year-old son and carry him on their laps for the duration of the flight. They tried to refuse and argued with airline staff, but say they were threatened with being sent to jail. "You have to give up the seat or...

An American Airlines attendant has been suspended after smacking a mother with a baby stroller onboard a domestic flight Friday afternoon, according to passengers. The woman had just boarded a 2:18 p.m. flight from San Francisco to Dallas when the shocking incident occurred. A video posted to Facebook by Surian Adyanthaya caught the tumultuous aftermath. “OMG! AA Flight attendant violently took a stroller from a lady with her baby on my flight, hitting her and just missing the baby,” Adyanthaya captioned the video. The footage doesn’t catch the moment when the flight attendant allegedly struck the woman, but the atmosphere...

A new report finds that, under the guise of “personalized learning,” school-issued computer devices — now distributed to one-third of K-12 students in schools across the United States — are serving to collect and store an unprecedented amount of personal data on children without their parents’ notice or consent. A newly released investigation by Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) reveals student use of technology in school has grown at a profound rate, especially with free or low-fee devices issued by schools.

Police: “You’re under arrest. Put your hands behind your back!” Suspect: “Don’t touch me! I didn’t do anything!” Police: “Oh, you didn’t? Sorry about that. My mistake. Off you go.” That was a hypothetical conversation that has never occurred. Do we really want to live in a society where individuals get to choose whether or not they feel like complying with the police at any given time? In the mid-1960’s, The Bobby Fuller Four fought the law, and the law won. Several years later, John Cougar Mellencamp reminded us that when he fights authority, authority always wins. And the same...

The adage about a picture being worth a thousand words never seemed as true as it did Monday when a video clip shot around the Internet showing a passenger being violently removed from a United Airlines plane in Chicago for refusing to be “voluntarily” bumped from the flight. United no doubt will expend thousands of words explaining or apologizing for this incident in the coming days and weeks. It won’t help. The video is just too raw. Indeed, the airline’s initial response to the publicity has left it covered in shame. United’s PR department first issued a statement explaining blandly...

A Calgary mom says her autistic son was “snack shamed” for taking banana bread to school, forced to eat in the hallway while his Grade 1 classmates ate fresh fruits and vegetables. The mom, whom Postmedia has agreed not to identify over concerns her six-year-old son could be punished, said she recently learned he had been removed from class for the offending snack. “They told me they only allow fresh fruits and vegetables for snack time,” she said, noting there are limited foods he will actually eat. “He was told to sit outside of the class to eat his snack....

The intelligence reports at the center of the Susan Rice unmasking controversy were detailed, and almost resembled a private investigator’s file, according to a Republican congressman familiar with the documents. "This is information about their everyday lives," Rep. Peter King of New York, a member of the House Intelligence committee said. "Sort of like in a divorce case where lawyers are hired, investigators are hired just to find out what the other person is doing from morning until night and then you try to piece it together later on.”

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- California prosecutors on Tuesday charged two anti-abortion activists who made undercover videos of themselves trying to buy fetal tissue from Planned Parenthood with 15 felonies, saying they invaded the privacy of medical providers by filming without consent. The charges against David Daleiden and Sandra Merritt of the Center for Medical Progress come eight months after similar charges were dropped in Texas. State Attorney General Xavier Becerra, a longtime Congressional Democrat who took over the investigation in January, said in a statement that the state "will not tolerate the criminal recording of conversations."

And no surveillance (including wiretapping) on Trump?

Darren Rainey spent two hours locked in a shower inmates at the Dade Correctional Institute said prison guards left set to scalding hot before dying of the injuries caused by the water. Rainey's skin was peeling off when he was removed from the shower. Inmates say he was screaming to be let out before he died, and that guards regularly used extremely hot and cold showers to punish mentally ill patients. Nearly five years later, in a report released Friday, the state's attorney has ruled that there was no criminal conduct by the guards. In her ruling, Katherine Fernandez Rundle...

Obamagate is gaining traction. Wikileaks revealed documents proving that Obama has a history of wiretapping and hacking friends and foes. In one particular Wikileaks document, Obama bugged a meeting between UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon and German Chancellor, Angela Merkel. Obama also intercepted a call between then French president, Sarkozy and Merkel.

Tu August 16 - Trump hires Kellyanne Conway as new campaign manager F August 19 - Trump visits Louisiana flooding (both Hillary and Obama refuse to go) Su August 21 - In an interview, Rudy Giuliani mentions Hillary's health as an issue, after she does no campaigning at all in August M August 22 - Hillary's fake "pickle jar stunt" on Jimmy Kimmel Tu August 23 - new CNN meme starts, questioning Trump's health W August 24 - Hillary's bizarre "alt-right" speech (first time term is used) W August 31 - After being invited, Trump visits Mexican President Nieto for...

The run-up to the election Louise Mensch and others broke the story that the Obama Justice Department and federal law enforcement authorities had obtained a Trump-related FISA warrant in October following the denial of an earlier FISA warrant request the previous June. On its way out the door the Obama administration trashed the “minimization” procedures protecting the privacy of American citizens caught in the FISA net. Andrew McCarthy raised a red flag in the troubling NRO column “FISA and the Trump team.” Earlier this week the New York Times reported the involvement of Obama administration officials in disseminating the information...

Oid Sheriff’s deputies violate procedure during a September 2016 welfare check?NBC Bay Area’s Investigation raises questions about whether Santa Clara County Sheriff’s Deputies violated their own policies and procedures leading up to the shooting of Saratoga homeowner Eugene Craig in September, 2016. Senior Investigative Reporter Stephen Stock reports in a video that first aired on Feb. 23, 2017. An attorney for the family of 86 year-old Eugene Craig says sheriff’s deputies violated their own department policy when they kicked in the doors and confronted Craig in his living room during what was supposed to be a “wellness” or “welfare” check....