Free Republic

As a freshman at Columbia University in 1970, future Attorney General Eric Holder participated in a five-day occupation of an abandoned Naval Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) headquarters with a group of black students later described by the university’s Black Students’ Organization as “armed,” The Daily Caller has learned. Department of Justice spokeswoman Tracy Schmaler has not responded to questions from The Daily Caller about whether Holder himself was armed — and if so, with what sort of weapon

As we watch the turmoil in Ferguson — where protests and police crackdowns raged for a week in the wake of a police shooting of an unarmed black teenager — many Americans have been forced to reassess their views on the duty and tactics of the police. But we conservatives — with our dueling affinity for law-and-order institutions like the police and our libertarian-inspired opposition to abuses of government power — are perhaps the most torn. Over at the Federalist, Hans Fiene notes, "For many conservatives, especially those of us living in nice, comfy suburbs, it's hard to apply the...

The last time he was discharged, Will was a different man. He'd refused treatment for 2 1/2 months and gone back into the world the way he'd arrived: confused, incoherent, psychotic. Two months later, he bludgeoned his mother to death with a hatchet. He believed she was an al Qaeda operative. Will is part of a special state program in Maine that allows the most violently mentally ill to get treatment after crimes instead of going to prison. Each remains in the custody of the state but has earned the right to live in the community by following rules, taking...

The Obama administration broke the law when it released thousands of illegal immigrants, more than 600 of whom had criminal records, last February as a result of poor planning and micromanagement from Washington, according to an internal audit released Tuesday that says things have not improved in the 18 months since. Compounding matters, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) gave bad information to Congress, initially blaming the looming budget sequester, rather than the agency's own budget pressures, the Homeland Security inspector general concluded. In the new report the IG does clear top Homeland Security officials of accusations they pressured ICE...

Many young people, especially the anti-social, dislike classical music so much that it can be played to discourage them from intimidating, harassing and robbing.This experiment has been successful over many years in countless locations. The earliest occurrence was in the mid-1980s, when Canadian outlets of 7-Eleven played easy listening and classical music to disperse teenagers loitering outside. After that, companies from McDonald's to Co-op, transport authorities, housing estates and shopping malls around the world have employed this method. In the UK, the first to do so was the Tyne-and-Wear Metro system in 1997, following Montreal’s underground system in Canada. Other...

“The purpose of adding more resources on the ground is not to address the women and children, it’s to address the growing reality that a lot of people coming across the border are here for criminal purposes,” Abbott, the GOP gubernatorial hopeful, told Fox News on Monday. “They’re killing, they’re raping, they’re robbing, they’re doing all kinds of harsh criminal activity.” Abbott said that women and children have been sexually assaulted by people who have come across the border.

Illegal aliens are being allowed to fly on commercial airliners without valid identification, according to the National Border Patrol Council (NBPC). “The aliens who are getting released on their own recognizance are being allowed to board and travel commercial airliners by simply showing their Notice to Appear forms,” NBPC’s Local 2455 Spokesman, Hector Garza, told Breitbart Texas.

Big Government: The EPA is now claiming the authority to bypass courts and, on its own, garnish the paychecks and attach the assets of those it accuses of violating its rules. And, as with the IRS, its hard drives also crash. The Environmental Protection Agency's insatiable lust for power has now gone beyond being the pen and the phone for President Obama's climate change, bypassing both the Constitution and the Congress in enacting rules and regulations that the American people and their representatives did not enact or even support. Through an announcement in the Federal Register, the agency is claiming...

FULL TITLE - US Southern Command Chief: 'Crime-Terror Convergence' on Southern Border Is 'Existential' Threat to Nation The United States' neglect of its southern border has created a threat that challenges the country's national security, says the general in charge of overseeing the region, and he is concerned that terrorists and others can exploit the vulnerabilities that have been created. "In comparison to other global threats, the near collapse of societies in the hemisphere with the associated drug and [undocumented immigrant] flow are frequently viewed to be of low importance," Marine Corps Gen. John Kelly, commander of U.S. Southern Command,...

Hayley Gibbs said: "He told me to give him a beating and let him go - I told him he was going to get a beating but that he wasn’t going anywhere"A brave mum grabbed hold of a burglar then dragged him into the street and restrained him until police arrived. Hayley Gibbs says she acted on ‘pure instinct’ when she saw the stranger peeking through her kitchen window after being burgled years earlier. Fuelled by adrenaline, the 28-year-old confronted the man, later identified as 23-year-old Anthony Joseph Gunn, before grabbing hold of him to stop him escaping. Resisting his...

In one case, a mentally ill New York City inmate hanged himself from a shower pipe on his third try in three days. During that stretch, orders to put him on 24-hour watch were apparently ignored, along with a screening form that said he was “thinking about killing himself.” Another inmate hanged himself with a bedsheet from an air vent in a solitary-confinement cell after repeatedly telling guards he was suicidal.

A Minnesota man is in jail because he logged on to Facebook. Police say 26-year-old Nicholas Wig checked his profile from a home he broke into, and then he didn’t log off. It happened June 19 in South St. Paul.

A handsome mug shot of a Northern California man arrested on felony weapons charges has gone viral on social media, attracting more than 33,000 "likes" and drawing comments praising his high cheek bones, chiseled face and striking blue eyes. Jeremy Meeks, 30, a convicted felon, was arrested Wednesday on five weapons charges and one gang charge, according to Officer Joseph Silva, a spokesman for the Stockton Police Department. SNIP Silva called Meeks "one of the most violent criminals in the Stockton area," though he declined to provide any details on the crimes that Meeks is believed to have been involved...

While our attention is focused on events in the Middle East, a domestic enemy of the nation is doing everything in its power to kill the provision of electricity to the nation and, at the same time, to control every drop of water in the United States, an attack on its agricultural sector. That enemy is the Environmental Protection Agency. Like the rest of the Obama administration, it has no regard for real science and continues to reinterpret the Clean Air and Clean Water Acts. It has an agenda that threatens every aspect of life in the nation.

President Barack Obama announced new executive orders Tuesday to make huge swaths of the Pacific Ocean off limits to fishing, energy exploration and other economic activities.The move would create the world’s largest marine sanctuary, and is part of a broader push to tackle global warming and halt offshore energy development. This effort will be led by Secretary of State John Kerry and White House adviser John Podesta.

“We are in a situation now where most Americans are criminals, but they either don’t know it, or they think they will not be prosecuted” says Tim Lynch in his introduction to this Cato panel last month. Perhaps even worse, “federal regulators and prosecutors have so much power that they can pressure people who are totally innocent into pleading guilty and paying fines.”

Border Patrol officials are swamped by the number of minors crossing illegally into the United States and frustrated that they can’t turn away known Mexican gang members. Chris Cabrera, vice president of the National Border Patrol Council Local 3307 in the Rio Grande Valley, said that confirmed gang members in Mexico — including those from Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13) — are coming into the country to be reunited with their families, National Review reported Friday. “If he’s a confirmed gang member in his own country, why are we letting him in here? … I’ve heard people come in and say, ‘You’re...

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...