Free Republic

IRS Deputy Associate Chief Counsel Thomas Kane said in transcribed congressional testimony that more IRS officials experienced computer crashes, bringing the total number of crash victims to “less than 20,” and also said that the agency does not know if the lost emails are still backed up somewhere. The new round of computer crash victims includes David Fish, who routinely corresponded with Lois Lerner, as well as Lerner subordinate Andy Megosh, Lerner’s technical adviser Justin Lowe, and Cincinnati-based agent Kimberly Kitchens.

One of the architects of the National Security Agency’s eavesdropping technology told a radio host today the Internal Revenue Service, or IRS, has “direct access” to the NSA’s domestic spying data and was likely using it to target the tea party. NSA whistleblower William Binney was being interviewed on “Aaron Klein Investigative Radio” on New York’s 970 AM The Answer when he disclosed the startling revelation. “For example,” Binney said in response to a question on how the NSA can use data and metadata to identify potential threats, “if you started to communicate with people involved in the tea party...

Something has gone wrong in our civil service. Consider some recent developments. The IRS was forced to pay the National Organization for Marriage $50,000 for leaking the group’s donor list. Tea-party organizations and donors were much more likely than others to be audited by the IRS. This misbehavior was not the work of a few rogue employees in Cincinnati. In general, the IRS stalled tea-party applications for status as 501(c)(4) groups. Meanwhile, April Sands, an employee of the FEC, recently pleaded guilty to violating the Hatch Act, which prohibits federal employees from campaigning at the office. Ms. Sands, who worked...

Lois Lerner's pension defunded and a whole lot more Saturday, July 19, 2014 9:15 pm | Updated: 1:29 am, Sun Jul 20, 2014.By Rick ManningLois Lerner was apparently patient zero of deadly computer viruses within the United States government as it has been learned that some of her former colleagues at the Federal Election Commission also mysteriously lost their computer hard drives. Of course, they had to be destroyed as well.The evidence must be pretty damning to have involved what appears pretty clearly to be an interdepartmental cover up. Two separate federal courts are now involved demanding an explanation from...

Goal is 'greater accountability' ... for foreign nations' governments...[C]hanges to government transparency are in the works with a plan to spend up to $600 million of U.S. taxpayers’ money to launch programs to “foster greater accountability of institutions and leaders to citizens.” However, Obama’s plan won’t benefit the U.S. taxpayers, who will be on the hook for the changes. His plan is to help make foreign governments more accountabile to their citizens. The Democratic, Responsive, and Accountable GOverNance, or DRAGON, project is to develop strategies to encourage citizens “to participate actively in governance,” according to a “concept paper” that WND...

Living in a city that had 82 shootings over the Fourth of July weekend, Chicagoans could be forgiven for envying the residents of Indianapolis. Imagine living in a place where homicides have been reduced by more than half in the past two decades, where robberies are less common than they've been in nearly half a century, where car theft is at levels not seen since "The Dick Van Dyke Show" was still in production. Actually, that's where Chicagoans do live. I was only pretending to talk about Indianapolis. Those developments have all occurred right here. Right now, the city...

The IRS is running but cannot hide due to citizens; citizens who obtained two important victories this week. Through Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests, the watchdog group Judicial Watch has taken the government to federal court seeking answers to the IRS missing emails; emails that are important in determining the extent and guilt of the IRS targeting the political opinions of ordinary Americans. This past week, the US Federal District Court for the District of Columbia has mandated two important rulings taking effect on Friday July 18, and no later than August 11, forcing the “most transparent administration in...

Footage shows allegedly drunk Pawhuska official By Angela Hong TULSA, Okla. — Footage obtained by FOX23 shows the Pawhuska city manager telling a police officer not to arrest a man suspected of drunk driving -- the man is also the city attorney. The footage has gone viral in the Osage County community and people there are upset. The Pawhauska police officer was wearing a body camera and it recorded the exchange he had with the city manager. The footages shows the manager telling the officer to let City Attorney Jesse Worten sober up instead of arresting him right away. On...

Albuquerque police’s new chief says the latest officer involved shooting that killed a homeless man in the foothills is justified. But new video police released Friday is raising a lot of questions about how it all played out. The release came Friday as APD’s first press conference since the shooting. http://krqe.com/2014/03/21/apd-officer-involved-shooting-was-justified/ Read more at

America’s most effective extortion racket, the Department of Justice, just bullied another big bank into surrendering billions of dollars in fines. Citigroup has agreed to pay an astounding $7 billion settlement to the DOJ for apparent wrongdoing leading up to the financial crisis. Why am I suddenly reminded of Al Capone’s observation about government coercion?"A crook is a crook, and there's something healthy about his frankness in the matter. But any guy who pretends he is enforcing the law and steals on his authority is a swell snake. The worst type of these punks is the big politician.” – Al...

Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., is highlighting a a fundraising phone call former Labor Secretary Hilda Solis made to an department employee as evidence that the Obama administration has a history of illegal fundraising activities. During a Wednesday Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing, Issa played a recording of a voicemail message from March 2012 that he said Solis left on the phone of a Labor Department subordinate asking the person to contribute to Obama's re-election campaign, Organizing for America, at a restaurant that Friday. “Hi, this is Hilda Solis calling, um, just calling you off the record here. Wanted to...

"As Senior White House Advisor Defies Congressional Subpoena, Committee Releases Audio Recording of Cabinet Secretary Making Illegal Campaign Solicitation" Then Labor Secretary: “Off-the-record here—Wanted to ask you if you could help us get folks organized to come to a fundraiser that we’re doing for Organizing for America for Obama campaign” As Director of the White House Office of Political Strategy and Outreach, David Simas, in defiance of a congressional subpoena, failed to appear today to testify before a House Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing on taxpayer-funded political campaign activity by government officials, the Committee released an audio recording of...

A Miami police officer pulled a car over for speeding last month, which turned out to be a plainclothes internal affairs lieutenant who shoved the door open on the officer after refusing to provide his drivers license, leading to a struggle on the side of the road that was caught on camera. As the two were on the ground wresting, another three Miami cops who just happened to be in the area pulled up and piled on the screaming driver– only to pull off when they realized the man at the bottom was an internal affairs lieutenant from their own...

A canon lawyer alleging a widespread cover-up of clergy sex misconduct in the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis has made her most detailed claims yet, accusing archbishops and their top staff of lying to the public and of ignoring the U.S. bishops' pledge to have no tolerance of priests who abuse.

The Environmental Protection Agency is rescinding regulations allowing the agency to garnish wages of those it says are delinquent on debts. A notice to be published in Thursday’s Federal Register formally withdraws the rule, issued earlier in the month. “In the direct final rule, EPA stated that if adverse comments were received by August 1, 2014, the direct final rule would be withdrawn and not take effect,” according to the terse notice. “EPA received adverse comments on that direct final rule.” However, the agency did not rule out proceeding with another version of the measure via a more deliberative rulemaking...

Well before Mr. Smith went to Washington D.C., politicians and civil servants have set out to change the Washington culture and bring about serious change, only to be ensnared in it themselves. Between the Georgetown dinner parties, the media obsession with the city that borders on self-parody, and the allure of power and prestige, the DC experience has proven itself to be an intoxicating one for even the most civic minded bureaucrat. While there have been calls to change the culture of the city for nearly as long as it has existed, few real solutions have been put forward to...

Congress should get the major accounting firms, consulting firms and law firms on board to investigate the administration on the VA, the IRS, Fast & Furious, the border crisis, Obamacare, the stonewalling, the lies, the coverups and even Benghazi. They have the manpower and the expertise to unearth the corruption, lies, deceit and the truth that the administration is hiding.........

The number of foreigners who successfully filed asylum claims in the United States almost tripled from 2012 to 2013, up to 30,393. That’s 10 times the number from 2008, when President Barack Obama was elected, and it is evidence his immigration officials are approving most of the asylum requests from the growing wave of Central American migrants. If you came illegally to the U.S. seeking asylum in 2013, you had better than a four-in-five chance of successfully filing an asylum claim. That’s up from a three-in-five chance in 2008. The migrants include mothers with children, and youths who have been...

A WaPo wow. Lois Lerner is, indeed, the tip of a very cold and ugly iceberg that needs to experience severe, special-prosecutor-led anthropogenic “climate change” until the agency is completely melted, and overflows in a devastating flood that inundates a bunch of high political offices. From Ed Rogers column: “The Insiders: More IRS smidgens show up. ‘Perfect.’” In a stunning revelation this week, it was disclosed that former IRS official Lois Lerner told colleagues,“we need to be cautious about what we say in emails” and then proceeded to ask the IRS IT department, in an e-mail, “if [instant messaging] conversations...

The White House on Sunday stood by President Obama's position that he continues to be the most transparent president in U.S. history, despite widespread complaints from journalists and other Americans about a lack of information or apparent misinformation. “I have a responsibility in this job to try to help the president live up to his commitment to be the most transparent president in history,” new White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said on CNN’s “Reliable Sources.” Earnest said he “absolutely, absolutely” sticks by Obama’s line about having the most transparent administration, after continued criticism about apparent attempts to not make...

Obama’s fundamental transformation of America can be seen clearly at our borders. The President’s lawless actions concerning illegal immigration has resulted in tens of thousands of unaccompanied children crossing the border illegally. The President wants billions to deal with this issue. He acts like he’s going to deport these children. The reality though is that his lawless unilateral creation of the Dream Act via regulation is what caused this border crisis. It’s hardly surprising that since Obama’s unilateral action last year thousands of children have entered the country illegally. Their parents who sent them believe they will be allowed to...

Attorney General Eric Holder said Sunday he and President Obama have been targets of “a racial animus” by some of the administration’s political opponents. “There's a certain level of vehemence, it seems to me, that's directed at me [and] directed at the president,” Holder told ABC. “You know, people talking about taking their country back. … There's a certain racial component to this for some people. I don’t think this is the thing that is a main driver, but for some there's a racial animus." Holder said the nation is in “a fundamentally better place than we were 50 years...

I remember once when -- we were sitting shiva for my paternal grandmother, I think-- I mentioned to my grandfather how smart I thought my youngest cousin, David, was. He replied, “All my grandchildren are smart, but the longer they go to school the dumber they get.” I thought of this when Drudge reported “42% of Millennials say they’re socialists, 16% know what a socialist is.” I guess the other 26% think it means they twitter. On the other hand, though the news of the world seems grim, there are small rays of intelligence starting to beam through the dopiness....

WASHINGTON — Two days after the White House declared that most immigrant kids crossing illegally from Central America would be sent back home, a top administration official admitted Wednesday that nearly half have already vanished within the United States. The official, Juan Osuna, director of the Executive Office of Immigration Review at the Department of Justice, told a Senate committee that about 46 percent of all children, accompanied and unaccompanied, apprehended by authorities fail to show up for hearings before immigration judges.He told the panel the office didn’t have a court-response rate for the unaccompanied children that have flooded through...

Lupillo Rivera being spit on by a protestor. [Fox News 11 reported this?]

FULL TITLE: EXCLUSIVE: HHS Bankrolled Catholic and Baptist Church from 2010 to 2013 to Prepare for Obama’s 2014 Invasion!//// A month or two ago news broke that Obama’s HHS was calling for private contractors to help transport illegal aliens throughout the interior United States. What made this already big news even bigger is the fact that the original call for proposals came out in January, long before the bulk of the illegal alien surge began. The breaking news you’re about to read is ten times bigger, because the following proves the Obama administration was bankrolling America’s churches back in 2010....

Advancements in technology have fueled this White House's obsession with controlling the message. Jay Carney is free. But not loose – at least so far. After resigning as the press secretary for President Obama on June 20, Carney gave insight into the Obama administration’s handling of classified documents, and responded to criticism that this administration has been the most Orwellian in recent history. “I know — because I covered them — that this was said of Clinton and Bush, and it will probably be said of the next White House,” said Carney in a recent New York Times Magazine interview....

A month or two ago news broke that Obama’s HHS was calling for private contractors to help transport illegal aliens throughout the interior United States. What made this already big news even bigger is the fact that the original call for proposals came out in January, long before the bulk of the illegal alien surge began. The breaking news you’re about to read is ten times bigger, because the following proves the Obama administration was bankrolling America’s churches back in 2010. And the tens of millions were flowing in to prepare for the invasion currently underway.

Stephanie McNeal July 11, 2014lewispostal.jpg Marcus Lewis was fired from the Postal Service for running for Congress.MARCUS LEWIS/REUTERS Does the punishment fit the offense? A federal agency announced two disciplinary actions this week against federal workers for violating a law that limits political activity. But while one of them -- a now-former Postal Service worker who committed the apparent sin of running for Congress -- was fired, the other -- an IRS worker who used taxpayer resources to promote President Obama's 2012 candidacy -- faces only a suspension. Now the ex-Postal Service worker in question, Illinois resident and congressional candidate...

The conviction of Rolf Harris is a reminder that child abuse is an abuse of power. The crime persists because perpetrators are not challenged and dealt with speedily by the criminal justice system. Children are still abused in Ireland every day.

HOUSTON, Texas--An ad placed in the Penny Saver Newspaper in Murrieta, California is seeking "loving, compassionate parents to provide a loving home" for illegal immigrant minors, according to a local reader of the publication. Lisa Maloney Vinton, a Murrieta resident, provided Breitbart Texas with a purported copy of the advertisement, which was put up by the Crittenton Services and Foster Family Agency. It says, "Help heal the wounds ... for children in foster care programs including survivors of human trafficking and unaccompanied refugee minors."

True reconciliation only begins with an apology. It takes more than saying one is sorry to heal the wounds that come from hurting others. That takes justice — a commitment to make things right, to change whatever actions have caused harm, and to hold those responsible for that harm accountable for their actions. Pope Francis on Monday met with a group of Roman Catholics who had suffered sexual abuse at the hands of Catholic clergy, and he offered a sweeping apology to them for the wrongs done against them when they were children.

Border Crisis: What Glenn Beck Did Wrong by John Nolte 10 Jul 2014, 8:15 AM PDT Wednesday morning The Blaze's Glenn Beck announced it was "deadly to my career" for him to provide truckloads of meals and soccer balls as a way to "help care for some of the roughly 60,000 underage refugees who have crossed into America illegally in 2014." Early Thursday morning on "Morning Joe," the left-wing Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski did exactly what I feared the media would do after Beck's announcement: they trashed conservatives who disagreed with Beck as lacking in compassion. Scarborough even mocked...

[Some] Emails recovered ... show that [Lois Lerner] was wanting to make sure that the IRS’ internal messaging system ["OCS"] was set-up to make sure her info was not traceable, trackable or storeable. [Lerner 04/09/2013 e-mail cc to Nanette Downing, Director of Exempt Organizations Examinations:] "I was cautioning folks about e-mail and how we have had several occasions where Congress has asked for e-mails ... we need to be cautious about what we say..."

For now, the incumbent, Johnny L. DuPree, remains in office, while the political stalemate continues. Mr. DuPree, the Democratic candidate for governor in 2011, has been locked in a bitter battle with former City Councilman Dave Ware since the June 4 balloting, which ultimately gave Mr. DuPree a 37-vote advantage. Mr. Ware, who ran for mayor as an independent, and his backers have waged a relentless battle since the vote, arguing that Mr. DuPree benefited from invalid absentee ballots and pervasive election fraud. (City officials also acknowledged that they had left a ballot-filled box unmonitored for a time after the...

At a time when federal agencies and state governments are being stretched much too thin (or so they claim), the US government reportedly sent oodles of taxpayer dollars to the wrong people last year, according to the Associated Press: By its own estimate, the government made about $100 billion in payments last year to people who may not have been entitled to receive them — tax credits to families that didn't qualify, unemployment benefits to people who had jobs and medical payments for treatments that might not have been necessary. Congressional investigators say the figure could be even higher. That’s...

6 days before tax day liberal Christmas in 2013 Lois Lerner was emailing with one of her fellow cronies and warning them to be careful, “we need to be cautious about what we say in emails”.

Kevin McGill, Associated PressJuly 9, 2014 Former New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin has been sentenced to 10 years in prison for his conviction on bribery, money laundering and other corruption charges. Prosecutors said the actions for which he was convicted spanned his two terms as mayor — including the chaotic years after Hurricane Katrina hit in 2005. U.S. District Judge Helen Berrigan handed down the sentence Wednesday morning. (snip)

NEW ORLEANS — C. Ray Nagin, the former mayor of New Orleans who was convicted in February on corruption charges, was sentenced to 10 years in prison on Wednesday in federal court in New Orleans. Mr. Nagin was found guilty in February on 20 counts, most relating to kickbacks from contractors looking for city work. The sentence was imposed by Judge Ginger Berrigan of United States District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana. Mr. Nagin, a Democrat, was arrested in January 2013, nearly three years after he left office. He was charged with taking kickbacks in the form of...

<p>The Environmental Protection Agency has quietly claimed that it has the authority to unilaterally garnish the wages of individuals who have been accused of violating its rules.</p> <p>According to The Washington Times, the agency announced the plan to enhance its purview last week in a notice in the Federal Register. The notice claimed that federal law allows the EPA to "garnish non-Federal wages to collect delinquent non-tax debts owed the United States without first obtaining a court order."</p>

Since 1994 there has been no official measure than includes discouraged people who have not looked for a job for more than a year. Including all discouraged workers produces an unemployment rate that currently stands at 23.1%, almost four times the rate that the financial press reports.

(VIDEO-AT-LINK)Hundreds of immigrants are dropped off at the McAllen bus station by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) every day. Mothers, fathers are given a notice to appear to immigration court that allows them to travel north. But are these families really related? "In the 1980s, they were doing was rent a kid in other words they knew that if you were coming with a child you would be treated differently," U.S. Representative Henry Cuellar said. The question remains, are people renting kids to get through screenings and be released? Chris Cabrera with the National Border Patrol Council says yes....

Cochran campaign staffer Amanda Shook was illegally reimbursed for over $40,000 cash in walking around money during the Republican primary, according to Federal Election Commission (FEC) filings. The payments are described as "Reimbursed Expenses - Campaign Walkers." Regulation 11 CFR 116.5 expressly defines funds advanced by campaign staff for any reason other than travel or subsistence as a loan. It is illegal under FEC rules to loan money to a campaign in excess of the contribution limit of $2,600. "[I]f your loan exceeds the limits, it is an illegal contribution, even if it is later repaid in full," notes the...

Ed Klein’s new book, “Blood Feud: The Clintons vs. the Obamas” has been making waves for its many salacious details — for example Klein’s assertion that there is a deep rift between Michelle Obama and the president such that they slept in separate bedrooms at Martha’s Vineyard (and continue to do so in the White House). However, the broader purpose of the book is to show that there is a heated battle going on — dating back to the brutal primary contest between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama during the 2008 presidential election cycle — that continues to manifest itself...

New research takes a look at decades of corruption convictions to find the crookedest states in the union. When we think of government corruption (as one tends to do), our biased minds often gravitate to thoughts of military juntas and third world governments. But, of course, corruption is everywhere, in one form or another. And it’s costing U.S. citizens big time. A new study from researchers at the University of Hong Kong and Indiana University estimates that corruption on the state level is costing Americans in the 10 most corrupt states an average of $1,308 per year, or 5.2% of...

“All of the fees have been donated to the Clinton Foundation." Hillary Clinton told ABC News on Friday that all of the speaking fees she has amassed since being Secretary of State have been donated to her favorite nonprofit foundation… The Clinton Foundation, Christian Science Monitor reports. Clinton has taken a lot of heat over the past several weeks after declaring that her and her husband Bill were "dead broke" after leaving the White House as president and first lady. No one believed her statement while knowing that she receives hundreds of thousands of dollars to speak at colleges, universities,...

This map was created by NumbersUSA from media reports. Click on the link for a bigger version of the map as well as a list of all the places so far recorded in media, as well as other places proposed. As can be noted from the list, at most of these locations, the local folks were not informed that they would be receiving this massive influx. Blue pushpin equals location blocked, red is children have already been placed there and....

Last month, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service listed the meadow jumping mouse as an endangered species. Now, the U.S. Forest Service, which oversees the Santa Fe National Forest, is considering erecting a series of 8-foot high fences to protect the mouse’s habitat. The Luceros, members of the San Diego Cattleman’s Association and holders of grazing permits with the federal government, say the fences will lock out their cattle — as well as those of other permit holders — from ever returning to the meadow where the livestock graze for 20 days in the spring and up to 40 days...

Is this the reason for the blowout, on the surface, payroll number? In June the BLS reports that the number of full-time jobs tumbled by 523K to 118.2 million while part-time jobs soared by 799K to over 28 million!

JACKSON, Miss. — The question seemed to tug at Senator Thad Cochran throughout his bumpy re-election campaign in Mississippi: Why, after a long, distinguished career — 42 years in Congress, including six terms in the Senate — was he seeking a seventh term? By all accounts, Mr. Cochran had needed to be talked into running. He told one national publication that he had planned to retire, and another that the first thing he wanted to do after Election Day was take a nap. And while the snowy-haired, 76-year-old Republican tried to hush whispers that he was not quite as sharp...