Free Republic

Why exactly does Obama want the “Strong Cities Network”? The Obama administration plans to create a global police force that counters “violent extremism” in the United States and elsewhere. The problem is that in Obama-speak “violent extremism” refers not only to jihadists wishing to harm Americans but also to conservatives and Tea Party activists. Just ask all the law-abiding right-of-center nonprofit groups targeted by Lois Lerner’s IRS during the Obama presidency. Ominously, President Obama and U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch unveiled the Strong Cities Network last week at the United Nations. America’s chief executive, who speaks in hushed and reverent...

The “surge” in IRS hiring is being compared to a military buildup by Republicans in Congress. The Inflation Reduction Act (sic) provides for an increase in IRS agents of 87,000 over a ten-year period, and a Republican study found that the additional agents will mean 710,000 more audits for taxpayers making $75,000 or less. Perhaps it’s appropriate to describe the “new IRS” in military terms. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy says Biden’s new “army” will be larger than the president’s hometown.

Federal police clashed with violent far-left mobs of Antifa rioters on Wednesday night, who took to the streets in cities across America declaring: "We don't want Biden, we want revenge!" Just hours after Joe Biden was sworn in on Inauguration Day, radical activists launched into a spree of destruction, burning U.S. flags, destroying property, and attacking police officers.

Alternative headline: Bill de Blasio enjoys new hobby of losing in court. Earlier this morning, the mayor threatened to sue if Donald Trump used federal law enforcement in New York City. On MSNBC’s Morning Joe, de Blasio specifically cited DHS action in Portland in claiming that Trump is “tearing up the Constitution,” and that he’d sue to stop a similar action in the Big Apple: MAYOR DE BLASIO: I still believe in the rule of law in this country, and we would go to court immediately. I believe what the president is doing is unconstitutional. I thought that quote...

A leaked document from George Soros’s Open Society Foundations exposes the billionaire’s level of involvement in attempting to build what his organization describes as a “national movement” to reform local police forces across the U.S. The reform largely consists of federal guidelines for local police forces.

Brazil's federal police today arrested 10 people and smashed a network allied to ISIS that was preparing 'acts of terrorism' at next month's Olympics in Rio de Janeiro. President Michel Temer has called an emergency cabinet meeting and Justice Minister Alexandre de Moraes said the operation spanned nine states across Brazil, although the arrests were made in the southern states of Sao Paulo and Parana. A court in Parana said there were indications the group was planning to use weapons to launch attacks similar to the Paris atrocities in November last year. Earlier this month Mr Moraes said a jihadist...

Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are exploiting the killing of five police officers in Dallas to push a range of assaults on the U.S. Constitution, including a decades-old plot to federalize America's local police departments without any semblance of constitutional authority. In between subtly demonizing law-enforcement officers as racists and touting the controversial Black Lives Matter movement, the two Democrat Party standard-bearers also seized on the Dallas police shootings to promote further infringements on the constitutionally protected right to keep and bear arms. Critics, though, including among America's police forces, blasted the Obama administration and its allies for fueling a...

President Barack Obama is harnessing the increasing attacks on police in Dallas — and the periodic shootings of people by stressed cops — to push his agenda to federalize state and local police forces. “I want to start moving on constructive actions that are actually going to make a difference,” he said during his evening press conference in Poland when he was asked about the Dallas attack.

<p>As the U.S. engages in a national debate over the militarization of the police, federal data shows that government agencies charged with largely administrative roles are spending tens of millions of taxpayer dollars to purchase SWAT and military-style equipment.</p> <p>Since FY 2006, 44 traditionally administrative agencies have spent over $71 million on items like body armor, riot helmets and shields, cannon launchers and police firearms and ammunition, according to federal spending data from watchdog group OpenTheBooks.com.</p>

Was passed on the highway today by what I thought was a state trooper but it said "Police" on the side and back. Upon closer inspection I saw another inscription for "Federal Protective Service" which I now know is Homrleland Security. I know other people have probably seen them but it was a first for me. I got a sick feeling in my gut the second I saw it. He was speeding of course. Everything about him said "I am above the law." Dollars to doughnuts these thugs will be everywhere by the end of the summer. The police state...

Behind the orchestrated riots that were allowed to strike Baltimore in recent weeks, and Ferguson, Missouri, before that, lies an agenda that has nothing to do with the fact that “Black Lives Matter.” As the Obama administration and more than a few race-mongers allied with the White House have already made clear, the real goal involves further chipping away at local self-government and community control over police departments — and expanding federal control over local law enforcement in its place. In between fanning the division and unrest with racialist rhetoric, Obama is also exploiting the chaos he is helping to...

Rev. Al Sharpton called for national policing legislation akin to the Civil Rights Act this morning at the kickoff his National Action Network’s annual convention, just after the arrest of a white South Carolina police officer for murder in the shooting of an unarmed black man. “There must be national policy and national law on policing,” Mr. Sharpton said. “We can’t go from state to state, we’ve got to have national law to protect people against these continued questions.” Mr. Sharpton’s comments, coming on the heels of multiple instances of police killings of unarmed men of color around the country,...

Rep. Chris Stewart of Utah, concerned about the armed agents that surrounded Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy’s property, introduced a bill to cut funding for any “paramilitary units” that work for the Bureau of Land Management, the Internal Revenue Service and other federal regulatory agencies. “There are lots of people who are really concerned when the BLM shows up with its own SWAT team,” he said on the House floor on Tuesday, the Salt Lake Tribune reported. “They’re regulatory agencies. They’re not paramilitary units, and I think that concerns a lot of us.”

WASHINGTON — As hundreds of commuters emerged from Amtrak and commuter trains at Union Station on a recent morning, an armed squad of men and women dressed in bulletproof vests made their way through the crowds. The squad was not with the Washington police department or Amtrak’s police force, but was one of the Transportation Security Administration’s Visible Intermodal Prevention and Response squads — VIPR teams for short — assigned to perform random security sweeps to prevent terrorist attacks at transportation hubs across the United States. “The T.S.A., huh,” said Donald Neubauer of Greenville, Ohio, as he walked past the...

This Iraqi Security Force (ISF) update provides a summary of changes to the ISF during October 2012. The Iraqi Security Force Order of Battle is updated as of 31 October 2012. Two speculative maps were published under “ISF Speculation.” The Russian and Czech arms purchases [and US M88s plus Serbian Artillery] were addressed separately in “Iraqi Arms Purchases October 2012”. These topics will not be addressed here. Air and Naval Bases have been added to the ISF OOB map. Highlights in this update include: - Further arms purchases and proposals; Joint US/Iraqi Training Exercise planned; TOC operational and adds Salahaddin;...

This Iraqi Security Force (ISF) update provides a summary of changes to the ISF during May 2012. The Iraqi Security Force Order of Battle is updated as of 31 May 2012. Highlights in this update include: 6th FP Division cancelled? Zeravani returning to KRG command. Avenger Air Defense for Iraq; Second batch of BTR4s delivering. Only 18 F16s ordered so far; Fifth An-32 delivered. Baghdad transitioning to Federal Police in July; Anbar PSF becoming FP Division?

There is little data concerning the Iraqi Ministry of Interior’s Emergency Response Force’s developments. This force is known to be expanding but, little is ever reported about the Ministry of Interior’s Special Operations Force. Some of what follows is speculation or rumor intelligence [unconfirmed]. All of the Provincial Iraqi Police Paramilitary forces are planned to be retrained and reequipped as part of their conversion to Emergency Response Brigades and Federal Police. The ERBs have first chance at the personnel from the provincial SWAT forces. They are sent to the Operator Selection Course and the best 50 percent join the ERBs...

DISCLAIMER: What follows, while based on known Iraqi armor orders, is an extrapolation. A prediction based on incomplete data. If 60 percent turns out correct, it will be considered good. The speculation article on Iraqi Armor orders only projected to 2014 and did not specify which divisions would be upgraded beyond the known. This article projects to 2020 and includes a possible sequence of division upgrades. The Iraqi Army appears to be adopting the US Army’s modular heavy brigade combat team (HBCT) structure with modifications. Tank companies are only 11 tanks vice 14; In place of Bradley ICV/CFVs, they are...

A common misperception about reported plans to increase the strength of the Iraqi Army, Federal Police, and Emergency Response Force [Ministry of Interior Special Forces] is that Iraq cannot afford the extra personnel and that it is not going to happen. The reality is that the personnel are already on the Iraqi Government’s pay-role. These increases are a transfer, retraining and re-designation of paramilitary personnel currently serving in provincial security forces and the Peshmerga. In the Iraqi Ministry of Interior, this program is called “Nationalization”. Nationalization started in 2007 when the Provincial Police Departments were ordered to separate the trained...

[NOTE: This text was first published in the March 7, 1997 newsletter. It was an important message in 1997, but seems even more important today.] Last week we gave Rep. Ron Paul's toll-free Legislative Update number (1-888-322-1414) and suggested that readers listen to his message "The Coming Police State." We were told by a lot of people that they missed it. Originally, that message was part of a one hour speech Rep. Paul made on the floor of the House. And, thanks to Jeff in Michigan, we have the complete text. Below is the shortened version of Rep. Paul's speech...