Free Republic

Mayor Bloomberg's bodyguard has been jailed for seven years for attempted murder in a love triangle shooting. Leopold McLean, 49, shot his girlfriend's ex-boyfriend outside her home in November 2010. The shooting took place after the veteran NYPD officer had dropped off Mayor Bloomberg’s daughter Georgina at home after a Knicks game.

Vice President Joe Biden on Tuesday, seeking to revive efforts to pass gun-reform legislation in Congress, warned lawmakers opposed to reform that Americans aren't on their side. "The country has changed" since the deadly shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., Biden said during remarks delivered on Tuesday afternoon in the White House's South Court auditorium. Lawmakers "will pay a price—a political price ... for not getting engaged and dealing with gun safety." Two months after the Senate failed to support the expansion of background checks for gun purchasers despite intense pressure from the administration, victims rights groups...

Even as reports break about the size and scope of the National Security Agency’s vast data storage center in Utah, new details are emerging about a second massive NSA center in San Antonio, Texas. According to the Houston Chronicle, “Satellite and aerial imagery show that massive air conditioning units and backup generators have been added to the facility, which is now ringed by barbed-wire fencing. City permits and property tax records show that the complex has been dramatically expanded.” According to sources, the plant will supposedly translate intercepted communications from the NSA; the communications are then forwarded to Maryland for...

The logic works like this: If homosexual acts are moral, as so many now insist, then they should be normative. If they are normative, they should be taught in our schools as a standard. If they are a standard, they should be enforced. And so it has come, and is coming, to be. Education is an essential part of the drive to universalize the rationalization for homosexual behavior; so it must become a mandatory part of the curriculum. What began as a plea for diversity ends with a demand for conformity.The infiltration of higher education by LGBT studies is well known....

Everyone has now heard stories about conservatives who’ve been punished by “non-political” agencies like the IRS for their beliefs, but it happens at the state level, too. Back in 2011, I wrote about Rachel Alexander, who was targeted by the liberal State Bar of Arizona for having the audacity to work with other conservative lawyers to fight corruption in the state. Rachel Alexander was collateral damage in a liberal fight to ruin her former boss, then-Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas. Thomas attempted in 2009 and 2010, with the help of Sheriff Joe Arpaio, to stop corruption by some judges and...

The immigration bill the Senate began debating this month will create a national biometric database of virtually every adult in the US.The immigration bill will create a massive federal database administered by the Department of Homeland Security and containing names, ages, Social Security numbers and photographs of everyone in the country. Mother Jones reported: Pointing to a section of the bill that mandates a CIS “photo tool” database to enhance E-Verify checks (PDF), Wired last month ominously warned that it “would create a national biometric database of virtually every adult in the US” through the collection of state-issued photo IDs....

Rep. Jeff Duncan, who is the chairman of the House Homeland Security Oversight Subcommittee, agreed with host Rick Wiles from TruNews in a radio interview Friday that it is time for a new investigation into Obama's validity. Here is the transcript of what was said: WILES: While you guys are rounding up and deporting the illegal immigrants, any chance the House may actually pursue Barack Obama’s phony identification papers? That’s the original scandal, congressman. DUNCAN: People should have voted against him in November. I’m afraid that that wouldn’t get to the Supreme Court where it ought to get. WILES: But...

You might be under the impression that everything is going pretty well in Canada, which had no banking collapse and only a mild recession in 2008-9. You would be wrong. The country is beset by political corruption scandals of the sort that people focus on when the economy is good. But it also has a massive ongoing housing bubble, and its economy is being propped up by a global commodities boom that now shows signs of slowing. Let's break down the three ominous signs. First, the scandals: Montreal Mayor Michael Applebaum got arrested this morning, charged with 14 counts including...

Although he implemented a flat tax in Russia, I don’t think of Vladimir Putin as a supporter of free markets. Heck, he was head of the KGB during the communist era, and he presides over a country that is more known for cronyism rather than competitive markets. So if he criticizes European nations for having excessive welfare states, it’s like being called ugly by a frog. Here are some of the amusing details from Euractiv.com. He’s no Milton Friedman, but he’s right about the welfare state Russian President Vladimir Putin, speaking ahead of the G8 Summit in Northern Ireland on...

Two weeks ago I reported on the $250 million real estate boondoggle by the General Services Administration whereby the GSA is moving the Coast Guard out of an existing, below-market lease at the cost to taxpayers of $250 million dollars.  Today I’m reporting on another, MORE EXPENSIVE real estate boondoggle by the GSA, which leads me to believe that if Congress is really serious about making real cuts to federal expenses that they can start with some easy cuts on federal real estate and personnel costs at the GSA. That’s because according to the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure,...

It's becoming increasingly difficult to give the government the benefit of the doubt in regards to dragnet domestic surveillance. Even before Glenn Greenwald published a top secret court order compelling Verizon to give the NSA information on all telephone calls in its systems and interviewed NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, there were credible reports that the NSA was intercepting U.S. communications. The most significant of those occurred in July, when the court that was established to "hear applications for and grant orders approving electronic surveillance," called the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC), found that the NSA violated the Fourth Amendment's restriction...

Misfeasance: While the IRS was hassling any nonprofit group with the word "patriot" in its name, it was rubberstamping exemptions for "Islamic" groups, even organizations that violate disclosure laws. Worse, it was even finding favor with nonprofits tied to terrorism — namely, the Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations, which not coincidentally is yoked to the Democratic Party. Despite being blackballed by the FBI, which still suspects it's fronting for Hamas, and despite failing to file annual tax reports as required by federal law, CAIR apparently has found friends in high places at the nation's powerful taxing authority. Last year, in...

The Internal Revenue Service has never been an agency much loved by the American people. With the IRS's targeting of conservative groups, its already bad reputation has now sunk to a new low. But the scandal raises a critical question: If the IRS can't manage an increase of 1,700 applications for tax-exempt status that the agency said spurred its targeting of conservative groups, how will the IRS handle its massive new role in implementing ObamaCare? Look at the Earned Income Tax Credit. Whether you like this refundable credit or not, the Treasury Department's inspector general for tax administration reported in...

PJ Media first reported on the anti-Semite, anti-white bigot Louis Farrakhan ‘s participation in a series of Democrat-sponsored rallies across Alabama in support of Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act. The case of Shelby v. Holder will be decided by the Supreme Court this month and may strike down the requirement that 15 states submit all election-law changes to the federal government for approval. This requirement has been used to block a variety of state laws designed to protect election integrity, including Texas voter ID and Georgia citizenship-verification requirements to vote. In support of this “preclearance” requirement, a group...

Michael Bloomberg, mayor of New York City, billionaire, desiring to rewrite the constitution, and countrywide buttinski suffered a major "gun control" loss on Thursday in Nevada. He and his pet group, Mayors Against Illegal Guns (MAIG), "spent hundreds of thousands of dollars" to buy passage of the Nevada state legislature's bill SB 221, another dangerous piece of gun control legislation dressed up to look palatable by applying the innocuous-sounding "background check" label to it. Bloomberg lost, and lost big-time, not because of a paid opposition wading in money, but because of a viral grass-roots effort organized by average Americans provided...

Probably in part because the Obama administration intimidates inspector generals.

A GOP member of the House Judiciary Committee said Saturday that Attorney General Eric Holder had lost the trust of the American people, arguing the Justice Department has been turned “into a criminal defense firm” over an ongoing government leaks scandal. “Eric Holder’s credibility has been shot," Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas) said during an appearance on Fox News. Gohmert lambasted Holder for refusing to publicly explain his role in the agency’s probes into media leaks, which involved the monitoring of reporters’ phone records. Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) announced late Friday that Holder had agreed to meet privately to...

Just a question to all Freepers: It is clear that the central planners for years have created this Federal Leviathan that is neither practical and is also restraining on our Constitutional rights. So my question is: How do we in essence (either through public relations, pulling the "right strings", changing laws to cause them to effect one another so as to reverse our large Government)? How do we in essence reverse engineer the Federal Government and all the onerous laws? (This is a discussion thread): AND I DON'T WANT TO HEAR ANY DEFEATISM like "It can't be done".

Through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. Rom. 5:2 The latest revelation of the IRS scandal that it is not even being investigated should terrify everyone. When an FBI official was asked who was leading the investigation and he could not even answer it, you know there is no investigation into this targeting of Americans. You can bet he would know who the lead investigator was if there was any pushback on a liberal protected group, but against the Tea...

It's the season of Pomp and Circumstance, flavored with dashes of parental pride, as a rising generation in cap and gown marches solemnly into its future. They're glowing with the beauty of youth, eager to take on the world. But what have we taught these young men and women, and will what they have learned lead them to become good citizens with productive and satisfying jobs? A high school diploma is only the first rung of the ladder to a complete education and career with the freedom (and hope) to enjoy life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. We hold...

Sure most people just see refugees, but Democrats see voters. A number of the refugees will be Christian, but somehow I think Obama isn’t all that interested in Christian refugees. Taking in Muslim refugees from Muslim civil wars in Somalia, Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere has largely been a disaster. The original World Trade Center bombing happened in part because the United States was willing to host Egyptian Islamists who would have been arrested in their own country. And who exactly will be taking in now? If the Muslim Brotherhood Jihadists lose in Syria, their leaders will flee to Europe...

(CNSNews.com) – The IRS is looking to hire a “diversity and inclusion” specialist, with a minimum salary of $123,758 a year. The opening for a full-time “Supervisory Diversity and Inclusion Specialist” at the agency’s national headquarters in Washington, D.C. was announced on June 11 and is open until June 24. The Diversity Specialist will “serve as a change agent to provide strategies, solutions, training, tools, resources and thought leadership on diversity and foster inclusion” across the workplace and “build internal awareness” for diversity and inclusion throughout the agency. Among the day-to-day job duties: Hear and resolve complaints from employees; "effect...

Liberals just can't help themselves. They'll do anything to protect the White House. With the latest scandalpalooza in Washington D.C., Obama's most loyal supporters are struggling to defend the President's agenda. So what are they doing instead? Calling opponents of that agenda "Obamaphobic." First it was New Jersey Senator Bob Menendez, who called Texas Senator Ted Cruz "Obamaphobic" for opposing Amnesty. “Well, I think he has Obamaphobia,” Menendez said of Cruz on MSNBC. “The reality is that it is the Gang of Eight that came together — four Democrats, four Republicans — and said that we need a path to...

Homeland Insecurity: The White House assures that tracking our every phone call and keystroke is to stop terrorists, and yet it won't snoop in mosques, where the terrorists are. That's right, the government's sweeping surveillance of our most private communications excludes the jihad factories where homegrown terrorists are radicalized. Since October 2011, mosques have been off-limits to FBI agents. No more surveillance or undercover string operations without high-level approval from a special oversight body at the Justice Department dubbed the Sensitive Operations Review Committee. Who makes up this body, and how do they decide requests? Nobody knows; the names of...

Probably in part because the Obama administration intimidates inspector generals. Among all the unanswered questions about the IRS’s illegal targeting of conservative organizations, one is most crucial: Who ordered this extreme scrutiny? Amazingly, IRS inspector general J. Russell George, responsible for the investigation asking those questions about the IRS, has testified that he did not obtain that information. Details of that testimony are interesting. Representative Tom Graves (R., Ga.) asked, “Have you asked the individuals who ordered them to use this extra scrutiny to punish, or penalize, or postpone, or deny?” George turns around to confer with his assistant. Just...

For computer users, a few mouse clicks could mean the difference between staying online and losing Internet connections this summer. Unknown to most of them, their problem began when international hackers ran an online advertising scam to take control of infected computers around the world. In a highly unusual response, the FBI set up a safety net months ago using government computers to prevent Internet disruptions for those infected users. But that system is to be shut down. The FBI is encouraging users to visit a website run by its security partner, http://www.dcwg.org , that will inform them whether they're...

The US has entered into a contract with a real estate firm to sell 56 buildings that currently house U.S. Post Offices. The government has decided it no longer needs these buildings, many of which are located on prime land in towns and cities across the country. The sale of these properties will fetch billions of dollars and a handsome 6% commission to the company handling the sales. That company belongs to a man named Richard Blum. Who is Richard Blum you ask? Why the husband of Senator Dianne Feinstein, that's who. What a bunch of crooks we have running...

Recall that as head of the Enforcement Office at the FEC, it seems that Lois Lerner spearheaded the harassment of conservative groups, specifically the Christian Coalition. Well, according to George Will, Lois Lerner had her finger in at least one other pie, specifically the US Senate race between Democrat Dick Durbin and Republican Al Salvi: In the fall of 1996, at the campaign's climax, Democrats filed with the Federal Elections Commission charges alleging campaign finance violations by Salvi's campaign. These charges dominated the campaign's closing days. Salvi spoke by phone with the head of the FEC's Enforcement Division, who he...

A WTHR-TV Indianapolis investigative report exposes a fraudulent scheme wherein the IRS is sending $4.2 billion per year to illegal immigrants as an "additional child tax credit" for children who don't even live in the U.S. Further, the IRS and Congress have been ignoring the scheme for years. The Inspector General's office has repeatedly identified the problem in audit after audit. The IG, Russell George says, "The magnitude of the problem has grown exponentially," but the IRS is doing nothing to stop it. "It's so easy it's ridiculous," the tax preparer whistleblower who exposed the fraud admits. Names are simply...

Critics say intimidation keeps shops, others, from complaining about lack of progress A congressional committee chaired by Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., may have moved on to other Obama administration scandals, but Arizonans still want answers to the Fast and Furious gun-running project that sent thousands of weapons to drug lords in Mexico. Will they get them? Not if a reported conspiracy of intimidation and enforced silence wins. Arizona State Rifle and Pistol Association President Noble Hathaway said it angers Arizonans that it looks like the federal officials involved with Fast and Furious “got away with it.” “To Arizonan’s it looks...

The bicyclist doesn’t remember seeing the youths run at him as he pedaled home late Tuesday afternoon on the Metropolitan Branch Trail, but he certainly recalls one knocking him off his bike and at least a dozen others piling on, punching and kicking him in the head. What the 37-year-old can’t understand is why they did it. They didn’t take his $500 bicycle. They ignored his cellphone. They didn’t want the $20 in his wallet. In fact, the victim said, “I didn’t hear a word.” And the lack of apparent motive is haunting the married father of two, who uses...

Sarah Palin didn’t mince any words after “comedian” Bill Maher called her son Trig, who has Down Syndrome, “retarded.” According to reports, Maher called Palin’s 5-year-old son Trig “retarded” this past weekend. “Maher made the remark during a stand-up comedy show at the Palms Casino Resorts in Las Vegas Saturday, where he is in the middle of a residency. Trig suffers from Down Syndrome, a genetic disorder that can cause physical problems and intellectual disabilities in humans,” the report said. “One brave audience member, Ron Futrell, did fight back in Palin’s defense, and according to his blog ended up being...

The Affordable Care Act is So Unaffordable, Members of Congress and Their Aides are Quitting Because They Can't Afford It! BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: Ladies and gentlemen, this is truly outrageous. There's a headline in The Politico today: "Obamacare? We Were Just Leaving..." And when I saw the headline, I thought it was gonna be an article about how Democrats are afraid of losing their seats because of all the skyrocketing costs of health premiums and all the other negatives associated with Obamacare. But that's not what this story is about. What this story's about is congressmen worried about themselves. In...

President Obama and his family will be going to Africa later this month. But the trip won't be cheap; it's expected to cost American taxpayers $60 to $100 million, according to the (The Washington Post) "When President Obama makes his first extended trip to sub-Saharan Africa later this month, the federal agencies charged with keeping him safe won’t be taking any chances. Hundreds of U.S. Secret Service agents will be dispatched to secure facilities in Senegal, South Africa and Tanzania. A Navy aircraft carrier or amphibious ship, with a fully staffed medical trauma center, will be stationed offshore in case...

Grassley's amendment was dead on arrival in the Judiciary Committee and it was dead on arrival on the floor of the Senate today. Why? Because it did the one thing Republican border hawks Must Not Do as part of this grand, glorious compromise on immigration: It demanded that the border be effectively secured before any form of legalization, including first-stage probationary legalization, is granted to illegals. That would be a true enforcement “trigger� for amnesty, something that would warrant a second look at the bill. But of course, Democrats will never, ever agree to it; they have no more faith...

Erik Nielson, writing at the Huffington Post, says that President Obama deceived many who supported him during his first presidential campaign, including hip-hop artists. He says that Obama's policies haven’t helped the minorities who elected him to office. There was something remarkable about seeing rappers pledge their support to a mainstream presidential candidate, especially given the history of antipathy between national politicians and hip hop. And, of course, there was something equally remarkable about watching a future president embrace hip hop culture. Indeed, whereas politicians on both sides of the aisle had made a political tradition out of demonizing hip...

Homeland Insecurity: The White House assures that tracking our every phone call and keystroke is to stop terrorists, and yet it won't snoop in mosques, where the terrorists are. That's right, the government's sweeping surveillance of our most private communications excludes the jihad factories where homegrown terrorists are radicalized. Since October 2011, mosques have been off-limits to FBI agents. No more surveillance or undercover string operations without high-level approval from a special oversight body at the Justice Department dubbed the Sensitive Operations Review Committee. Who makes up this body, and how do they decide requests? Nobody knows; the names of...

Nine senators, congressman follow pattern of S&L scandal: contributions and intervention. So here’s the formula. An independent agency of the U.S. government. United States Senators. A powerful campaign contributor to said United States Senators. A powerful campaign contributor who wants something from said independent agency. Add it all together and what you get is — The Keating Five. And the IRS Ten. Let’s start, by way of illustrating how the game worked, with The Keating Five.

Our tax-collecting agency has been called “an invitation to corruption” for decades. In light of its recent admission that conservative groups were improperly targeted for special scrutiny in applications for tax-exempt status, and the release of a conservative group’s private tax information to liberal organizations, the Internal Revenue Service wants you to know it takes all allegations of wrongdoing by its workers very seriously. “Very seriously.” Back in 2012, when the National Organization for Marriage’s (NOM) tax files were published by the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), and the NOM accused the Internal Revenue Service of leaking the information, the agency’s...

CORPUS CHRISTI - A Guatemalan national, who had been in the custody since May 12, died Tuesday at a Corpus Christi hospital. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials said the man, Federico Mendez Hernandez, 28, was diagnosed with rabies. Health experts believe he contracted the virus prior to crossing into the United States. Border Patrol agents arrested Mendez on May 9 on the Rio Grande near Hidalgo. He was transferred to ICE custody three days later. On May 18, Mendez was transported to Christus Spohn Hospital Kleberg in Kingsville after he reported symptoms compatible with rabies. The following day, he...

Fuerza del Valle Workers' Center is raising awareness about wage theft among undocumented immigrants. “Most people do not know you can call police after they try to get their pay from an employer and the police have a duty to follow criminal law and investigate the employer," Hector Guzman Lopez, Fuerza del Valle Workers' Center coordinator, said. Under Texas Penal Code it is illegal for employers to not pay for labor regardless of the person's legal status. Basilio Castro, an undocumented immigrant, was working at an Alamo apartment complex painting and doing construction. “They liked the job so they were...

State Department whistleblower Aurelia Fedenisn, who accused the Obama State Department of covering up eight investigations including accusations of child prostitution, says she is being threatened and so were her kids. Fedenisn released documents that show the State Department may have covered up allegations of illegal and inappropriate behavior within their ranks. Now her kids are being threatened. The PJ Tatler reported, via Free Republic:

U.S. Ambassador To Belgium Howard Gutman, who was a top Obama campaign bundler, reportedly “solicited prostitutes, including minors.” Gutman was also a Palin-basher who challenged her parenting skills. (VIDEO-AT-LINK) The New York Post reported, via Weasel Zippers: A State Department whistleblower has accused high-ranking staff of a massive coverup — including keeping a lid on findings that members of then-Secretary Hillary Clinton’s security detail and the Belgian ambassador solicited prostitutes. A chief investigator for the agency’s inspector general wrote a memo outlining eight cases that were derailed by senior officials, including one instance of interference by Clinton’s chief of staff,...

Monitoring hundreds of millions of phone records is an extraordinary invasion of privacy. When Americans expressed outrage last week over the seizure and surveillance of Verizon's client data by the National Security Agency, President Obama responded: "In the abstract, you can complain about Big Brother . . . but when you actually look at the details, I think we've struck the right balance." How many records did the NSA seize from Verizon? Hundreds of millions. We are now learning about more potential mass data collections by the government from other communications and online companies. These are the "details," and few...

"Based upon the language of Article II, Section 1, Clause 4 and the guidance provided by Wong Kim Ark, we conclude that persons born within the borders of the United States are "natural born Citizens" for Article II, Section 1 purposes, regardless of the citizenship of their parents." Ankeny v. Daniels, 916 N.E.2d 678 (Indiana Ct. App. 2009, ) What went wrong with this decision?

Folks, Anyone listening to Beck? He noted very big stories will break within 7 to 10 days(?) that will rock and divide America.He also alluded to something 3 years old and a Whistle Blower so scared that he only will testify in Front of Congress Televised...

What if this administration orchestrated "Snowdens NSA Leak" for the purpose of evoking just the reactions being displayed by at least half the US public? Outrage over the spying and invasion of privacy. Patriot Act gets called into question. Hang on I'm getting there...we beg them to stop spying on us. The Senate now wants to review the Patriot Act ect...modifies or eliminates certain elements making it fairly innoculous regarding domestic issues. What if by doing this the administration opens the door really wide enabling a attack that dwarfs 9/11 and blames it those who opposed the NSA spying. What...

The Obama Administration has dropped its legal battle against a judge’s decision that would allow young girls to purchase the Plan B morning after pill over the counter. The decision allows anyone to purchase the drug and opponents of the decision say it paves the way for male sexual predators to purchase the drug for girls they victimize, by removing safeguards currently in place. Previously, the Justice Department appealed a court ruling saying the morning after pill known as Plan B should be available without a prescription for teenagers starting at age 15. Late Monday, the Obama administration said it...

On Special Report with Bret Baier, a video of Joe Biden from May 12, 2006 was discussed. In this video, Biden told us to not trust a president who spys.

Last week, we learned a little more about President Obama’s nominee to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). We started the week knowing that Richard Griffin is a defendant in an embezzlement and racketeering lawsuit. He is named in the portion of the suit dealing with a cover up. According to The Wall Street Journal, “Mr. Griffin is named in a federal complaint filed in October by 10 members of IUOE Local 501, out of Los Angeles, which describes a ‘scheme to defraud [the local] out of revenue, cost savings and membership,’ by means of kickbacks, bribery, violent threats and...