Free Republic

Federal agents in Los Angeles are investigating an L.A. shipping firm and its Iranian-born owner who for years have participated in and promoted an obscure U.S. immigration program -- allowing the company to recruit wealthy foreign investors to receive visas and potentially Green Cards, law enforcement sources told ABC News. Whistleblowers inside the federal agency that oversees the immigration have been deeply frustrated by an inability to de-certify the company, even after they became aware of the investigation and saw the company’s name surface in an alarming internal Department Homeland Security memo. The memo outlines concerns that Iran’s Revolutionary Guards...

Harry Reid loves the EB-5 program — and now we know why. The visa grants residency status for those who invest $500,000 or more in a US venture, assuming that the applicant can pass a background check for emigration. DHS supposedly prevents fraud and worse by conducting these background checks, but it turns out that Reid’s only interested in another kind of check entirely. ABC News’ Nightline did an exposé of the EB-5 program, showing that officials twist arms (or have theirs twisted) to bypass the background checks in order to get favored individuals into the US (via Daniel...

Officials overseeing a federal program that offers an immigration short-cut to wealthy foreign investors have ignored pointed warnings from federal agents and approved visas for some immigrants suspected of having committed fraud, money laundering, and even one applicant with alleged ties to a child porn website, an ABC News investigation has found. The shortcomings prompted concerns within the Department of Homeland Security that the boutique immigration program would be exploited by terrorists, according to internal documents obtained by ABC News.

Internet polls measure the ratio of people who have enough interest to participate in the given poll.  PBS.org has put up an Internet poll with the responses noted above.   You can see that the poll is getting hammered by second amendment supporters.   The message, loud and clear, is that of people who are interested enough to answer the poll, second amendment supporters outnumber disarmists by  24 to 1.   This is one of largest differentials that I have seen in second amendment related Internet polls.  A couple of weeks ago, we had one in Florida that was 15 to 1. ...

In Florida, a 32 year-old career criminal was captured as he resisted arrest after committing multiple felonies.  It was particularly notable because he had been arrested for illegal possession of a firearm just a few days previously.   Wilford McCloud is accused of breaking into several cars before he was chased by an off-duty Brevard County deputy.  From clickorlando.com: As Holton attempted to arrest McCloud, the man was reportedly violently resisting, which led to Holton shooting McCloud. (snip) McCloud was arrested just days before for carrying a concealed firearm by a convicted felon and has an extensive record. Trying to...

LINCOLN, Neb. — There were few surprises during Sunday’s U.S. Senate debate, except when the frontrunner, GOP nominee Ben Sasse, seemed to stumble on a question about gun rights just days after being endorsed by the National Rifle Association. Sasse earned the highest NRA rating a candidate can get without a voting record, and marked the group’s only endorsement in the general election. But he seemed confused when asked a question about background checks at gun shows by Colleen Williams, anchor for NTV, an ABC affiliate in Kearney. Here’s what she asked: “With countless national incidents, high profile shootings in...

Vice president Joe Biden has disparaged gun-rights advocates as “tea baggers,” CNN host John Walsh told reporters today. ... ‘They’re all scared sh*tless of the NRA, aren’t they?’” (said John Walsh) “‘John, every one of them,’” the vice president replied, according to Walsh. “‘Because the NRA will run a tea-bagger against you. . . . They’ll put 5 million bucks against you.’”

Newser) – You might think that giving a green light to Edward Snowden and Aaron Alexis and allegedly fraudulently submitting 660,000 other background checks without actually completing them would prevent you from getting future government contracts. But you'd be wrong, because the Department of Homeland Security has awarded a $190 million contract to US Investigations Services, the Wall Street Journal reports. Why? Because USIS hasn't actually been suspended, and, as one immigration official explained, unless there is such a suspension in place, "by law and policy, we have to go with the lowest bidder." USIS isn't barred, the Office of...

Civilian who killed Sailor at Naval Station Norfolk identified "Norfolk, Va. – The civilian gunman accused of killing a sailor aboard the destroyer Mahan on Monday night before being fatally shot is Jeffrey Tyrone Savage, the Navy announced on Thursday. The Navy says Savage, 35, drove his 2002 Freightliner through Gate 5 just after 11 p.m. He then went to Pier 1 and left the truck and tried to get onto the USS Mahan. He was stopped by security there and that’s when a struggle started. They say Savage disarmed a petty officer of the watch and Savage then used...

The Department of Justice (DOJ) is preparing to announce an expansion of background checks based on executive orders president Obama issued in January 2013. According to The Hill, the expansion consists of "three changes to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS)."

A new Obama administration policy that says criminal background checks are discriminatory against minority job applicants is “deeply flawed,” according to half of the commissioners who sit on the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, the independent and bipartisan federal agency created by Congress decades ago. The administration has gone after companies that use criminal background checks to screen job applicants, claiming in lawsuits that the probes disproportionately exclude blacks from hire. In the last year the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), the federal agency that enforces the nation’s workplace discrimination laws, has sued two large companies that screen criminal background...

When former Congresswoman Gabrielle “Gabby” Giffords appears today in Olympia to testify in favor of Initiative 594, the 18-page gun control measure being sold as a “universal background check” requirement, only one question should be respectfully asked: How would adoption of this measure have prevented the kind of thing that happened in Tucson in January 2011? That's the incident in which Giffords was shot in the head by a gunman who killed six people and wounded 12 others, including the former congresswoman. She will be accompanied today by her husband, former astronaut Mark Kelly.The question is a fair one. There...

John R. Lott Jr. is president of the Crime Prevention Research Center and the author of "More Guns, Less Crime" The new year has brought yet more gun-control regulations. President Obama announced new executive orders on background checks. Connecticut citizens stood in long lines to register their guns, and, next door in New York City, registration lists are used to confiscate them. While the research by criminologists and economists keeps showing that gun control doesn't work, technological advances and practical problems mean the laws are increasingly likely only to disarm the law-abiding. In the era of 3D printing, you won't...

The Obama administration on Friday proposed two new executive actions to make it easier for states to provide mental health information to the national background check system, wading back into the gun control debate after a months-long hiatus. One proposal would formally give permission to states to submit "the limited information necessary to help keep guns out of potentially dangerous hands," without having to worry about the privacy provisions in a law known as HIPAA.

December 05, 2013, 02:12 pm WH admits Obama briefly stayed with uncle By Mario Trujillo The White House confirmed on Thursday President Obama had met his uncle, Onyango Obama, who was granted legal residency to the country this week — reversing a previous statement. The White House had previously told The Boston Globe that the president had never met his uncle, after Onyango — referred to as Omar — was arrested in 2011 for drunk driving. But it revised its statement on Thursday, saying the press office had not actually asked the president about his relationship with his uncle before...

The conservative Club for Growth on Monday launched a new ad campaign in support of Sen. Thad Cochran’s (R-Miss.) primary challenger – the latest in a quickly launched campaign against the longtime senator. The Club and another conservative group, the Senate Conservatives Fund, both endorsed state Sen. Chris McDaniel in the race last week. The Club’s new ad pitches McDaniel as a “Constitutional conservative with backbone” who has “stood up to the big spenders in both parties.” It makes no mention of Cochran, but instead pitches McDaniel as an alternative to business as usual in Washington and shows pictures of...

In Columbus, Ohio a few members of the Mayors Against Illegals Guns group tried to rally support for universal background checks. But with dismal numbers they were soon drowned out by the numbers of pro gun supporters that showed up. “As a gun owner, I’m a responsible person and I think it’s responsible to ask to have all gun owners have a background check,” said Blanche Luczyk. “It’s just common sense. Any responsible person who is willing to take the ownership of a gun should be willing to have that background check.” Luczyk was one of a half dozen members...

Pressured by the federal government, states and municipalities across the U.S. are adopting senseless measures restricting employers from asking job applicants about criminal history. The Obama administration claims criminal background checks are discriminatory because they disproportionately exclude minorities—especially blacks—from hire. That’s why the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), the federal agency that enforces the nation’s workplace discrimination laws, is spending taxpayer dollars suing companies that run criminal background checks on job applicants. Besides litigation, the administration is working behind the scenes by offering local governments “guidance” on passing measures banning criminal background checks. The laws are known as “ban the...

Yesterday, CNN was all over the story of three teenagers in Oklahoma who shot and killed a baseball player who was walking down the street just to watch him die. It’s a horrific story, and these teens definitely deserve to fry, but as with every other gun-related story the mainstream media picks up on, it’s being used to demonize the NRA and further the gun control agenda. But consider the following: these teens were too young to legally purchase firearms in the first place. So, in fact, the proposed gun control bill that Democrats still have their panties in a...

The Obama administration’s claim that criminal background checks discriminate against minority job applicants suffered a lashing from a federal court that found the allegations “laughable,” “distorted,” “cherry-picked,” “worthless” and “an egregious example of scientific dishonesty.” That kind of whipping from a federal judge has got to hurt though it’s unlikely to deter the administration from spending more taxpayer dollars to file frivolous lawsuits against employers who use the checks to screen job applicants. Judicial Watch wrote about this a few weeks ago when the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), the federal agency that enforces the nation’s workplace discrimination laws, sued...