Free Republic

Watching the celebration at the NRA convention over the defeat of background checks was the most nauseating experience of the day. I am not a New York gun control liberal, either. I support a shotgun for home defense, a handgun for limited conceal/carry, and an assortment of hunting rifles to balance West Virginia's exploding deer population (as evidenced by hourly collisions with cars). So, I am hardly out of the mainstream. But, the gun safety debate is B.S. This foaming at the mouth, Obamar is coming for the guns, Nanny Bloomberg is a bad billionaire, and most despicable of all,...

Could the situation at the IRS get any worse? McClatchy joins CBS News in postulating that the scandal may well expand to more than just applications for tax-exempt status. Both news agencies are starting to take complaints about predatory and punitive audits and other actions and put them into a very ugly pattern — and ask some very difficult questions of the Obama administration: While the developing scandal over the targeting of conservatives by the tax agency has largely focused to date on its scrutiny of groups with words such as “tea party” or “patriot” in their names, these examples...

After I graduated college and before I landed my first real-deal job that included insurance benefits, I took out my own independent health insurance plan that covered all of the bases a young and healthy person like myself might need. It cost me about ninety dollars a month, and seeing as how I didn’t have any regular health care needs, it was pretty much just catastrophe insurance in case I happened to break my leg or get into a car accident or catch malaria or some other relatively unlikely scenario. I felt secure about the situation, knowing that I would...

Scandal: One IRS commissioner visited Obama's White House 118 times in 2010 and 2011. His successor also dropped in often. But under George W. Bush, the tax chief visited once in four years. Time for an audit. IRS Schedule O As the Washington Examiner noted last weekend, ex-commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service Douglas Shulman went to the White House some 118 times in 2010 and 2011, while Steven Miller, the acting director who took over from Shulman last November, himself made numerous trips there, White House visitor logs show. Business as usual for one of the most powerful arms...

It is a petition to end what many Tucson drivers describe as a traffic light trap. John Kromko is the man behind the petition. His group, Tucson Traffic Justice, claims the cameras are a scam. ... Ditching the cameras is not as far-fetched as it may seem. More and more cities are shutting down the system including San Diego, Los Angeles and Tempe.

The Illinois Ag Dept. illegally seized privately owned bees from renowned naturalist, Terrence Ingram, without providing him with a search warrant and before the court hearing on the matter, reports Prairie Advocate News. Behind the obvious violations of his Constitutional rights is Monsanto. Ingram was researching Roundup’s effects on bees, which he’s raised for 58 years. “They ruined 15 years of my research,” he told Prairie Advocate, by stealing most of hisstock.

Included among the suspected terrorists were Iraq and Afghanistan veterans. At the time it was revealed, the program called “Operation Vigilant Eagle” caused some controversy but was quickly forgotten and buried by the media. For the DHS, Vigilant Eagle was the expression of the misdirected paranoia that exists at the agency’s highest levels, which since President Obama stepped into office have issued multiple reports about a supposed wave of terrorism by American conservatives of various stripes, from Tea Party members to off-duty cops.

IRS Directed to Lock Down All Agency Data By Eliana Johnson May 28, 2013 12:50 PM The Internal Revenue Service is in the process of locking down all computer data across the agency, a sign that investigations into the scandal-plagued agency may be taking a broader sweep than initially anticipated. Agency employees last Thursday received an e-mail alerting them, ”This is a late breaking top priority and things could change in the future,” according to an IRS employee who asked not to be named. Employees were directed not to “wipe, re-image or otherwise destroy any hard drives” on any machine...

An editorial at Investors Business Daily may wind up being filed under how did I miss this one? Following the recent revelations of cases where the administration appears to have used the muscle of the federal government to go after its political enemies, IBD takes a walk down memory lane to the strange case of Gibson Guitars and the federal raids on their facilities for alleged illegal importing of exotic woods used in their products. They reach one provocative conclusion. The inexplicable raid nearly two years ago on a guitar maker for using allegedly illegal wood that its competitors also...

The Justice Department begged a federal judge to not tell Fox News reporter James Rosen that it was tracking his telephone calls and emails in a probe regarding a national security leak. U.S. Attorney Ron Machen argued in 2010 that the traditional 30-day notice period did not apply to Rosen as Justice secretly monitored his Gmail account, according to new exhibits unsealed this week and disclosed by The Hill. “Where, as here, the government seeks such contents through a search warrant, no notice to the subscriber or customer of the e-mail account is statutorily required or necessary,” Machen wrote in...

The Internal Revenue Service, charged with implementing the biggest change in tax laws in 20 years due to Obamacare, has created eight offices and special "teams" to handle the chore, way more than initially revealed. Besides the top office headed by the woman in the middle of the IRS-Tea Party scandal, there are seven others and a special enforcement team that make up an organization chart that mirrors the organization of the IRS itself, according to a Treasury Inspector General's report. The June report focused on concerns that the IRS, which is filling the Obamacare offices with 2,137 agents and...

She is being questioned because of her reported actions of soliciting donations from non-profit organizations that are “directly implementing” Obamacare. Twenty-six members of Congress, including Michele Bachmann (R-MN) and John Culberson sent a letter on May 16 questioning the actions of Sebelius. “We are deeply concerned with the recent reports that you have made numerous phone calls soliciting financial donations for non-profits that are working to enroll individuals in the new Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act exchanges (or ‘marketplaces’ as you now call them),” the letter began. The letter also reminds Sebelius that if such calls were made, that...

It seems like only yesterday that IRS Director of Exempt Organizations Lois Lerner was claiming she knew nothing about the dastardly work of those shadowy "low-level employees in the Cincinnati office" - who somehow remain shadowy to this day, despite having been blamed for the worst abuse-of-power scandal in living memory. The Incompetence Defense beloved of this administration, and so effective with a media that would never accept it from a Republican official, was deployed with gusto. Lerner was shocked, shocked, to discover gambling against Tea Party groups going on at Rick's Tax Exempt Organizations Cafe American. But now National...

When you get right down to it,the political targeting and stalling of tax-exempt applications by the IRS was an effort to defund the Tea Party. Rick Santelli,one of the Tea Party founders and my CNBC colleague,was the first to make this point. I’ve taken it a step further: The IRS was taking the Tea Party out of play for the 2012 election,as it looked to avoid a repeat of 2010 and another Tea Party landslide.… But there can be only one reason for the stalled-out approval process for conservative groups. The IRS was trying to put them out of business....

In a startling exchange Wednesday during the IRS hearings before the House Oversight and Reform Committee, America learned that the IRS knew in May of 2012 that its employees were targeting conservative organization with paralyzing harassment and Kafka-esque audits. Although the IRS knew this, they did not report this information to Congress. "While a tremendous amount of attention is centered about the Inspector General's report, or investigation, the committee has learned from Ms. Paz that she in fact participated in an IRS internal investigation that concluded in May of 2012 - May 3 of 2012 - and found essentially the...

The unfolding IRS scandal is a symptom, not the disease. For decades, campaign-finance reform zealots have sought to limit core political speech through spending limits and disclosure requirements. More recently, they have claimed that it is wrong and dangerous for tax-exempt entities to engage in political speech. The Obama administration shares these views, especially when conservative, small-government organizations are involved, and the IRS clearly got the message. While the agency must be investigated and reformed, the ultimate cure for these abuses is to unshackle political speech by all groups, including tax-exempt ones, from arbitrary and unconstitutional government regulation. Beginning in...

A couple of weeks ago, President Obama warned college grads about crazy people (like John Adams, for example) who warn about the constant threat of tyranny in government... He might have to give that speech to a few more groups, because a new poll suggests that Americans are going with John Adams:

With three full-blown scandals currently surrounding the Obama administration, there are too many “-gates” to name just one. There is the cover-up of the fatal Benghazi terrorist attack, the IRS targeting conservatives, and the Justice Department spying on members of the press. The level of corruption is so high right now it is like Saul Alinsky is running the White House. Alinsky, the radical activist who wrote Rules for Radicals, which he dedicated to Satan, taught the radical left to use dishonest tactics in order to achieve their agenda – “by any means necessary.” He advocated lying and harassing those...

The Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 was originally established to protect American citizens from the federal use of military troops to enforce and execute the laws of the land unless expressly authorized by the Constitution or Congress. Since then, for over a century, this task has fallen upon local and federal law enforcement. But with the War on Terror taking center stage in the United States for the last decade, elements within the government have been working tirelessly to expand the mission of the US military on the domestic front. First, they passed the Patriot Act, which gave the government...

Since D.C. officials refused to turn over any documents about their investigation and decision not to prosecute NBC News’ David Gregory, we have to depend on the Freedom of Information Act to force transparency. Mayor Vincent Gray’s office, however, responded to my request by deflecting. It turned out, he was hiding information. On March 11, I sent a detailed request to FOIA Officer Mikelle DeVillier in the Executive Office of the Mayor. I asked for all documents about Mr. Gregory’s possession of an illegal 30-round magazine. Government agencies are required to respond to a FOIA request within 15 working days. Ms. DeVillier...