Free Republic

Chicago police are going to hand deliver letters to people suspected of committing or being victims of gun crimes in an effort to stem violence in the city, according to a new report. Starting Friday, a district commander will be delivering letters warning certain targets in that district not to commit violent crimes, the Chicago Sun-Times reports. The pilot program is targeting individuals off a “heat list” developed by a Yale professor, who studied murders on Chicago’s West Side between 2005 and 2010 and found a small network of people was responsible for more than 70 percent of the killings,...

Men acting as security for the Trayvon Martin rally in Miami, Florida today accosted Miami Herald reporter David Smiley and confiscated his notebook.The incident took place as Martin's father Tracy was leaving the rally and entered a vehicle. The security accused the reporter of writing down the license plate of the vehicle.Smiley reported the incident on Twitter along with photographs:Tracy Martin gets into black aescalare as Wilson speaks, surrounded by bodyguards. Crowd chants "Stay Strong." pic.twitter.com/24ZEjmOKTfCurry's people, after snatching my notes and accusing me of writing down Martin's tag # ... Stay classy pic.twitter.com/lchrUfltwlFellow Herald report Marc Caputo described the...

Officials in Long Beach, California are warning residents about a potential “bash mob” possibly planned for Friday afternoon. Bash mobs are unruly crowds that group together to race through streets committing petty crimes such as assault and property damage, reports CBS LA. One of these mobs happened in downtown Long Beach on July 9, and investigators discovered another one planned for 2 p.m. today, July 19. “The Long Beach Police Department takes this issue very seriously and will be prepared to arrest anyone whose intent is to commit criminal acts,” Long Beach Police Sgt. Aaron Eaton said. “We will continue...

It seems we are destined to have immigration reform at the forefront of the political discussion in America. What we should be doing is enforcing our current immigration laws, but that doesn't seem to be in the works. Many of our politicians believe we need a massive piece of legislation to overhaul the entire system. President Obama believes he can use executive orders to rewrite the way the system works. Consequently, he has already ordered DREAMER status to be given to any illegal immigrant claiming to be brought to America when they were a child. According to Chris Cane, President...

The door opened Monday for tens of thousands of nonviolent felons in Virginia to regain the right to vote, with state officials outlining steps each will have to take to recapture their basic civil rights. Gov. Bob McDonnell has said up to 100,000 disenfranchised felons ultimately could be added to the voter rolls, serve on a jury or hold political office.“For past offenders, our goal is to grant civil rights back to as many as possible,” McDonnell said in a statement. “This is the right thing to do for all Virginians to help make the commonwealth a safer and better...

Dallas Independent School District Police Chief Craig Miller announced that his district will not be participating in a new program permitting school employees to be deputized and trained to assist in providing security. “If schools are concerned about deterring armed assailants they should be hiring more police, not arming the teachers,” Miller asserted. “The notion that part-time amateurs could substitute for full-time professionals disrespects our profession. The use of deadly force ought to be restricted to fully qualified police officers.” The new law is predicated on the belief that attackers would be dissuaded by the fear that a widespread possession...

Secret courts. Secret emails. Phone surveillance. Drones. The list of cloak-and-dagger tactics employed by the Obama administration -- and those that preceded it -- keeps growing, as NSA leaker Ed Snowden feeds classified materials to the media and other reports show the extent of the U.S. government's more opaque dealings. The latest was a report by The Associated Press that said the administration had military files about the Navy SEAL raid on Usama bin Laden’s hideout transferred to the CIA, where they would be harder to uncover by the press and public. If this were any other administration, perhaps the...

Rep. Tom Marino (R-Pa.) in a Thursday radio interview revealed he is exploring the potential options that would allow Congress to file civil or criminal charges against members of the Obama administration and even President Barack Obama himself. Citing the Obama administration’s delay in the implementation of the employer mandate found in “Obamacare,” Marino told radio host David Madeira that the president continues to show a disregard for the law. He also argued Attorney General Eric Holder is never going to hold the Obama administration accountable. “If the chief law enforcer of the country [Holder] will not enforce the law,”...

Director of National Intelligence James Clapper has no plans to resign following disclosures to the Senate Intelligence Committee that he misled Congress on widespread National Security Agency electronic surveillance of Americans. “DNI Clapper explained his response in the letter to Chairman [Dianne] Feinstein [(D., Calif.)] and apologized for the misunderstanding,” said Michael Birmingham, spokesperson for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. Clapper “values the decades-long stellar relationship he has with Congress and remains focused on leading the intelligence community,” Birmingham told the Free Beacon in a statement Monday.

Exclusive: Ted Nugent blasts 'Fedzilla' for enabling populace to remain 'lazy and dumb' Now that the American Medical Association (AMA) has wrongfully labeled obesity as a disease, the AMA may as well categorize as such our most troubling, chronic, widespread and debilitating self-inflicted ailment of choice: stupidity. What once was one of America’s most respected medical institutions, the AMA has been afflicted with the stupid disease and has torpedoed its reputation with a single decision. Don’t be surprised if next week the AMA recommends we drink eight ounces of warm hotdog water each day to improve our health. Smart Americans...

While it took a “Freedom of Information Act” filing to learn that the Department of Homeland Security has ceased doing background checks on illegal aliens applying for “special status” under President Obama's “Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals” Executive Order, Secretary Janet Napolitano says “it's no big deal.” “Truthfully speaking, there just isn't enough time for us to check the thousands of applications we have received,” Napolitano admitted. “With all the other stuff on our plate we had to figure out what to let slip through the cracks. It was our assessment that screening immigrants for criminal records was something we...

The EEOC ignored that judicial thrashing and pressed on. Last April, the agency unveiled its "Enforcement Guidance on the Consideration of arrest and Conviction Records in Employment Decisions," declaring that "criminal record exclusions have a disparate impact based on race and national origin."

In 1963, the great civil rights leader Martin Luther King said it was his hope that black Americans would no longer be judged on their color of their skin, but on the content of their character. Fifty years later, the Obama administration's Equal Employment Opportunity Commission says King got it wrong. The EEOC launched two lawsuits against private companies this week over their use of criminal background checks, claiming that in rejecting applicants with proven criminal records, they somehow discriminated against minorities under a disparate impact clause in their guidelines. Aside from the inherent and insulting racism in that presumption...

WASHINGTON—Mounting scandals at the Internal Revenue Service are jeopardizing critical funding for the agency as it gears up to play a big role in President Barack Obama's health care law. Obama sought a significant budget increase for the IRS for next year, when the agency will start doling out subsidies to help people buy health insurance on state-based exchanges. Congressional Republicans, however, see management problems at the IRS as an opportunity to limit the agency's funding just as it is trying to put in place the massive new law. Republicans have been fighting the health care law ever since Democrats...

During his radio broadcast today on The Blaze network, conspiracy theorist Glenn Beck promised some big news would rock this "country in the next 24 hours" and "take down pretty much the whole power structure" (video below). .... Excerpt only.

Lost amidst the White House he-said-she-said of finger pointing, scandal, incompetence, venality, hubris, vanity, error, greed, gluttony, embarrassment, cover up, stupidity,  amateur bungling, brownnosing, grandstanding, photo-opting and hearings as the result of a few minor mistakes made by the Obama administration- an administration which rode roughshod over a several outdated laws, certain small parts of the Bill of Rights written by irrelevant white dudes; an administration that got people killed, violated civil rights, harassed government employees, ignored it’s basic responsibilities and common sense- are these small, little, niggling details: The folks in charge are freaking hypocrites; and because the are...

New York State has made it clear that it believes that only police officers can be trusted with magazines that hold more than seven rounds. A Nassau County police officer recently fired eight rounds at an armed individual who was menacing him and a hostage, with the result that the hostage died.

(A billboard on I-75 in Ocala) An anti-immigration reform group has put up a billboard on I-75 in Ocala attacking Sen. Marco Rubio for promoting "amnesty." "When 20 million American citizens and legal workers are unemployed or desperately trying to find full time jobs it is both callous and irresponsible for Florida Senator Marco to sponsor an immigration bill that will flood the labor market with 33 million foreign workers over the next ten years," said Jack Oliver of Floridians for Immigration Enforcement. Oliver is citing a study prepared for Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., who has been the leading...

The division of the Internal Revenue Service that improperly scrutinized the tax-exempt status of conservative groups sent confidential information on 31 conservative groups to the well-funded liberal nonprofit journalism organization ProPublica, according to a revelation made by ProPublica Monday. “The same IRS office that deliberately targeted conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status in the run-up to the 2012 election released nine pending confidential applications of conservative groups to ProPublica late last year,” according to the ProPublica report. “In response to a request for the applications for 67 different nonprofits last November, the Cincinnati office of the IRS sent ProPublica applications...

May 12, 2013 Darrell Issa: House Oversight Committee to depose Pickering and Mullen over Benghazi Twitchy Staff Darrell Issa reports that the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, which he chairs, will depose Ambassador Thomas Pickering and Admiral Mike Mullen over Benghazi....