Free Republic

According to the House Ways and Means Committee, the IRS has "lost" two years of emails belonging to former head of tax exempt organizations Lois Lerner. The IRS doesn't have a record of her emails to outside groups or government agencies from January 2009 through April 2011, conveniently encompassing some of the same time when tea party groups were being targeted for extra scrutiny and possible criminal prosecution. The IRS says the loss of emails is due to a "computer crash" and claims emails from or to Lerner from the White House, Democratic members of Congress, the Treasury Department, FEC...

Few U.S. institutions resemble today's prison system. Most Americans have little-to-no exposure to this quiet behemoth which has quadrupled its population since the 1980's, but for those who are exposed, the effects are dramatic. The system is wrecking families, hurting individuals, and costing our nation billions of dollars. We've seen some promising developments in the last year, but more Americans need to open our eyes to the dangerous path we've been headed down and push for continued reforms. I've lived several years of my life in a small Midwest farming town that owes much of its continued existence to our...

Has the Obama administration set the U.S. on the “B1 emissions path”? The B1 emissions pathway was defined in an obscure IPCC report published fourteen years ago (and since superseded), titled the Special Report on Emission Scenarios (SRES). Four scenarios were presented: A1: “strong commitment to market-based solutions” and “high rates of investment and innovation in education [and] technology.” B2: “international institutions decline in importance, with a shift toward local and regional decision-making structures and institutions.” A2: “some regions move toward stronger welfare systems and reduced income inequality, while others move toward "leaner" government and more heterogeneous income distributions.” B1...

Last week the state of Oklahoma "botched" an execution. Botched is the accepted term in the media coverage, despite the fact Clayton Lockett was executed. He just died badly, suffering for 43 minutes until he eventually had a heart attack. Oklahoma's governor has called for an investigation. President Obama asked Attorney General Eric Holder (who is seeking the death penalty in the Boston Marathon bombing case) to review the death penalty. Obama's position was a perfectly defensible straddle: "The individual ... had committed heinous crimes, terrible crimes, and I've said in the past that there are certain circumstances where a...

NEW PORT RICHEY, FL (WFLA) - When soldier Michael Sharkey was deployed to Afghanistan two years ago, he asked a friend to watch over his New Port Richey house. Sharkey and his wife are now living in Hawaii where he is currently stationed. They plan to move back into their New Port Richey home someday. But, right now they are fighting to get their house back. They say strangers broke in, changed the locks, moved in and they refuse to leave. "I want the people out," said Sharkey. "They're criminals living in my house." Sharkey was shocked to find out...

Illegal aliens across America are committing FRAUD by filing tax returns with an IRS "ITIN" number, and listing children as dependents who live in MEXICO -- or who don't exist at all!. This fraud is costing taxpayers an insane $4.2 BILLION PER YEAR. In addition, these are FELONY crimes - yet the Feds do NOTHING to stop it. And Harry Reid and his Senate Democrats just defeated an attempt to STOP this fraud, in order to save $6 billion in cuts to disabled veterans. Illegal aliens across America are committing FRAUD by filing tax returns with an IRS "ITIN" number,...

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The son of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV), Rory Reid, is the primary representative for ENN Energy Group, a Chinese energy company seeking to build a $5 billion solar panel plant on a 9,000-acre Clark County desert plot in Laughlin, Nevada. ENN scored big when Clark County commissioners unanimously voted to sell the Chinese company the public land for just $4.5 million, despite the fact that it was appraised at $38.6 million. Sen. Reid has been one of ENN’s biggest supporters, having recruited the company during a 2011 trip to China. According to Reuters, last month Sen. Reid tried...

In his video, Pat Condell defines the religion of peace as “the most racist ideology on the planet.” Responsible for destroying the once great nation of Britain, Islam is now spreading its poisonous talons of hatred and intolerance across the United States. Condell does a masterful job of exposing the ” mind-blowingly, soul-witheringly, unforgivably offensive,” practices of Islam by the simple method of telling the truth. How can the so-called “religious” practices of this group of sub-human thugs be beneath contempt while remaining above criticism or condemnation? The 6 minute video offered by Condell is guaranteed to...

A major political scandal unraveled in Charlotte Wednesday as Patrick Cannon resigned as Charlotte’s mayor after federal investigators arrested him on bribery and corruption charges. Documents outline how agents said the mayor abused his power for years.

The South Carolina Department of Corrections is investigating a video posted online reportedly filmed from within a state prison by inmates.... The video, posted on worldstarhiphop.com, is titled "South Carolina Inmates Film 1st Ever Music Video In Prison!" and already has more than 400,000 views.

School officer hailed as hero after deadly shooting by Jeff Thompson, KGW.com Staff Posted on March 13, 2014 at 5:13 PM PORTLAND -- The school resource officer who shot and killed a violent kidnapping suspect Wednesday was treated and released from a Portland hospital after being hit with gunfire. Officer John Romero, an 8-year-veteran of the Portland Police Bureau assigned to youth services, was shot in the hand while investigating reports of a suspicious man near Wilson High School. Romero's job was to protect students and on Thursday, many were calling him a hero. "Through his actions, he put a...

If you listen to the President, and other supporters of Obamacare, you might get the impression that the reason why tens of millions of Americans go without health insurance is because these people have pre-existing conditions, and health insurers are too mean to cover them. The truth is quite different. Less than a million Americans lack health insurance because of a pre-existing condition. And it turns out that a good number of Americans are uninsured not because they are sick, but because they are convicted criminals.

Medical Examiner: Sudden cardiac arrest of Israel Hernandez-Llach was 'accidental'

You may be a criminal without even knowing it. Centuries ago, there were only nine felonies under English Common Law. The common law dealt with behavior that is widely understood to be culpable — murder, theft, rape, etc. — but in today's state legislatures and in Congress, innocuous behavior is too often criminalized. In Michigan, a person can be convicted of a crime for betting in an office March Madness pool, or mocking a person who refuses to duel. Accompanying this over-criminalization is the failure of legislatures to define the intent necessary for a prosecutor to prove a crime has...

For decades, California's criminal justice policies ensured that murderers and others sentenced to life, with the possibility of parole, could expect to die in prison. And most of the time, they did. Since Gov. Jerry Brown assumed office in January 2011, a record number of inmates with life sentences are winning parole. Brown has allowed the release of nearly 1,400 lifers, while going along with the parole board about 82 percent of the time.

Question: If Obamacare officials cannot prevent accused embezzlers from infiltrating their offices, how can they protect enrollees from grifters, con artists and thieves in the federal health insurance exchange system? Here in my home state, a director of Connect for Health Colorado -- the state-sponsored Obamacare health insurance exchange -- was just put on administrative leave. No, Christa Ann McClure did not go on leave over the chronic problems plaguing the cursed Connect for Health website. She's on leave because she has been indicted for filching funds from her last employer in Montana. No, the guardians of Obamacare didn't smoke...

A pimp is suing Nike for $100 million -- and says that its Air Jordan shoes failed to include a warning on them that they could be used as dangerous weapons after he used his own pair to beat a man.Sirgiorgiro Clardy, 26, alleges Nike is partially responsible for Clardy's 100-year prison sentence for beating a man in 2012, The Oregonian reports. Clardy, a Portland-based pimp, was wearing a pair of Jordans when he stomped on the face of a man who was attempting to leave a hotel without paying Clardy's prostitute, the paper adds. Clardy was found guilty of second-degree assault by...

Above: Illegal aliens made out like banditos thanks to Harry Reid and Senate Democrats. Disabled vets? Not so much.- They actually did it. They are on the record. Senate Democrats, led by their filibuster-slaying dictator Harry Reid, actually put the interests of illegal aliens above those of our disabled military veterans.Let that sink in for a moment. Now the details: The two-year budget deal brokered by Senate Budget Committee Chairwoman Patty Murray and House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, would cut military pensions by $6 billion over ten years. Republican Sen. Jeff Sessions of Alabama, joined by several others in his party, tried...

Is it possible to predict who is most likely to die at the hands of a gun? Not shootings like those at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut, the movie theater in Aurora, Colo., or the Washington Navy Yard, but the all-too-common shootings that occur in neighborhoods across the country. The idea is not far-fetched if one drills down into the nature of gun violence, which, in the way it is transmitted, bears striking similarities to public health epidemics such as cholera in Haiti or HIV/AIDS in the United States. Epidemics of any kind are not random... More than 40 percent...