Free Republic

Judge of the Millennium Wade McCree has a special place in the hearts of ATL’s writers. The former Wayne County circuit judge had a penchant for disrobing for shirtless selfies and sex in his chambers, and was consequently disrobed by the Michigan Supreme Court. On Monday, the Sixth Circuit correctly (if you mean “applying the law as it currently exists,” and “incorrectly” if you mean “adopting the better policy”) held that Judge McCree is immune from a civil suit brought by a man McCree slapped with a tether and high child support payments. The man’s complaint is that while Judge...

CHICAGO – Employers in Illinois can no longer access criminal background checks on potential hires until after an interview is conducted. Gov. Quinn signed into law this week a bill that prohibits private employers from asking applicants about their criminal history prior to determining if they are qualified for the job. “Everyone deserves a second chance when it comes to getting a job,” Governor Quinn said in a press release. “This law will help ensure that people across Illinois get a fair shot to reach their full potential through their skills and qualifications, rather than past history. It will also...

The feud between Campbell, Wisconsin, Police Chief Tim Kelemen and local Tea Party Leader Greg Luce began last fall, when Luce started organizing protests against Barack Obama on an interstate overpass. Kelemen objected to the protests, claiming they disrupted traffic. So, he did what any responsible police chief would do: he persuaded the town board to pass an ordinance banning signs on the bridge. Oh, and he also signed Luce up on homosexual dating, pornography and federal healthcare websites. Via Police One: Kelemen told investigators ...........

On Thursday, with PJ Media's J. Christian Adams as her guest, Fox News's Megyn Kelly recited a list of assertions (under oath, she reminded us) made by Internal Revenue Service officials which have later been shown to be lies or cause for agency flip-flops after "new" facts have been revealed. It's a significant list. By implication, it's an indictment of the vast majority of the establishment press, which has refused to give the IRS scandal the attention it deserves. Video and a transcript follow the jump. ... The establishment press has been almost completely uninterested in telling their readers, listeners,...

Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see. Hebrews 11:1 NIV It is time to impeach this Marxist dictator, not for this generation, but for generations to come. It is time for America to send the message that this is still a country of laws even for the lawless. This is not a political message, it is a message that nobody is above the law and especially the most powerful person in the land. This is once again calling on the most democratic institution in the land, our House of Representatives...

The media are abuzz with the IRS affair. As you may have heard, former IRS official Lois Lerner, in charge of tax exempt groups, directed harassment operations targeting conservative groups. She also recommended auditing Republican Senator Charles Grassley. Appearing in front of the House Oversight Committee (HOC) in May 2013 and again last March, she pled the Fifth and refused to answer any questions. Later, IRS commissioner John Koskinen announced that potentially damning emails that were subpoenaed by the committee had disappeared in a series of computer crashes affecting Lerner’s machine, as well as the machines of at least six...

. July 27, 2014 Newt Gingrich : Bigger than President Obama ===================================================== A Fox News poll this week reported that 58% of the American people felt the Obama Administration was incompetent. That sense of incompetence included 32% of Democrats, 67% of independents and 84% of Republicans. As president, having your political opponents believe you are incompetent is not a shock. Having two out of three independents find you are incompetent is a shock. Having one out of three of your partisan supporters consider you incompetent may mean it is time for the Obama team to panic. This survey on incompetence...

I visited the Kelly File last night on Fox News with Megyn Kelly. The segment provides an excellent summary of the IRS flip flopping and lies. Here is the video from Fox News Insider:

Dallas County Commissioner John Wiley Price was arrested today as a result of a 13-count indictment which claims the powerful Texas Democrat took $950,000 in bribes. Wiley's attorney, Billy Ravkind, confirmed that he was arrested early Friday morning and is in Federal custody. The indictment indicates Wiley received the bribes in the form of cash, cars and property and that he and his political operatives used the ill-gotten gains to commit tax and mail fraud. For the full indictment, please access the following link. The indictment charges that, among other things, Price and his accomplices used his office and stature...

<p>DALLAS - Dallas County Commissioner John Wiley Price was arrested Friday morning and is in federal custody.</p> <p>The arrest for bribery, mail fraud and tax fraud comes after a lengthy federal investigation.</p> <p>Three years ago, the FBI served search warrants at Price’s home, his county office and at the homes and offices of others. They were looking for evidence of public corruption.</p>

... “They are people who have already made money and are now scared to lose it,” Paley said.... “I don’t share the opinion of 90 percent of the country: I feel like a foreigner here now so why not leave?” said Tatiana Konkova, a Russian literature teacher and singer, giving her last concert in Moscow this month.... The number of Russians emigrating in the last two years was some five times higher than in the two before Putin began a new six-year term in May 2012, official figures show.... Echoing the post-Soviet brain drain, sociologists say Russia is bleeding exactly...

Paul Farhi of The Washington Post writes today about a trend at the White House—and throughout journalism—that threatens the quality and credibility of news-gathering: Public-relations "minders" are injecting themselves into our interviews with politicians, CEOs, and other policymakers. Minder madness joins the surge of "background briefings" and the decline of access to decision-makers as evidence that the White House—and other big instititutions—are manipulating the press. It's that, but it's also something worse: It's evidence that journalists are ceding control when they should be seizing it, accepting canned news rather than breaking it. Farhi writes, "Almost every officially sanctioned exchange between...

SYRACUSE, N.Y. -- Gov. Andrew Cuomo and his top staff thwarted efforts by an investigatory commission to uncover political corruption and expose campaign finance loopholes because the panel... got too close to the governor's own politics... Cuomo's top aide, Larry Schwartz, interfered with the commission's attempts to investigate campaign spending for a media company that the governor also used....the commission's executive director reported back to Schwartz while its staff grew increasingly suspicious and frustrated that the governor's office was meddling in the investigations. The commission developed a list of promising targets, including a lawmaker suspected of using campaign funds to...

An investigation has found that Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo’s aides deeply compromised the panel’s work, objecting to any inquiries about groups tied to Mr. Cuomo.

After touching down around 3:15 p.m. at Boeing Field, Obama's first stop will be to a mansion in Seattle's Madrona neighborhood where 250 people will attend a fundraiser. From there, he'll head to former Costco CEO Jim Sinegal's Eastside home at Hunt's Point for a fundraiser there.

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...