Free Republic

WASHINGTON — Federal officials can’t resolve 85 percent of 2.9 million “inconsistencies” on applications for ObamaCare even after nine months of trying, according to new data provided by the administration. Most of the problems involve certifying citizenship and income, key components of the national health plan. But some of the problems are downright nutty. One unidentified state-run marketplace cited situations in which infants and young children were “erroneously identified as incarcerated, according to federal data,” the inspector general for the Health and Human Services Department revealed Tuesday. Just 425,000 problematic applications have been resolved out of 2.9 million that states...

FRESNO, Calif. (AP) — A California wind farm will become the first in the nation to avoid prosecution if eagles are injured or die when they run into the giant turning blades, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said Thursday. The Shiloh IV Wind Project LLC, 60 miles east of San Francisco, will receive a special permit allowing up to five golden eagles to be accidentally killed over five years. Previously, such a violation could potentially draw criminal charges and discourage private investment in wind farms known for catching birds in their rotors. The permit will require the facility to...

Lawrenceville, Virginia’s 1,500 residents have just learned how progressives operate. The impoverished and majority black community had no say when the head of the Health and Human Services green lighted the transport of 500 illegal immigrant kids up to age 17 from shelters in the Southwest to St. Paul’s College in the southern Virginia town.Officials of St. Paul’s, a historically black college shut down last year, agreed on June 13 to house the kids for at least five months. Federal government personnel toured the “quaint campus” the day before signing a contract. The $100,000 per month taxpayer-funded bribe the HHS...

Preparing the propaganda pretext of the next battlespace, from the Daily Collectivist: "Cliven Bundy's American-hating Separatist thugs admit, on Facebook, that they aimed weapons at Federal agents with the intent to kill. In their online Facebook conversation, Bundy's Separatists admit three Oath Keepers positioned themselves high on a hill and put a 'bead on' the Federal agents below with the intent to kill those Federal agents.

With the Cliven Bundy story still fresh on the minds of many Americans, it’s a shock to see a state government turn the tides on the federal government by passing legislation that demands it hand over control of 30 million acres of land. It’s become commonplace to see news stories of the opposite phenomenon, as the federal government, working through the Bureau of Land Management, has time and again trampled on the private property rights of its citizens and claimed lands for itself. This is not the case in Utah. Utah Governor Gary Herbert signed a bill earlier this year...

A new, unedited version of comments by Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy has emerged, and it sheds some light on the context of his remarks, universally condemned on Thursday as horrifically racist.

<p>"They know, Chuck, they know. They know we're coming." -- ATF undercover agent Robert Rodriguez to raid commander Chuck Sarabyn, 28 February 1993, one hour before the raid on the Branch Davidians.</p> <p>"It is of no concern. Soon the Rebellion will be crushed."</p>

When Kit Laney answered a knock on his door Saturday, law enforcement officers from the U.S. Forest Service handed him a piece of paper announcing his Diamond Bar Ranch in southwest New Mexico would be shut down Wednesday and his 300 head of cattle grazing there would be removed – one way or the other. Other Forest Service officials were busy nailing similar notices on fence posts along the highway and informing neighbors that after Feb. 11, they should not attempt to enter the Diamond Bar property. Laney was not surprised. He knew someday there would be an on-the-ground confrontation...

Dozens of armed federal officers are preparing for a showdown with a Nevada cattle rancher regarded by some as an outlaw and a hero by others.

KOO: The US Is In A 'QE Trap' And Both The Markets And The Media Are Missing It Joe WeisenthalMar. 26, 2014, 4:48 AM Nomura economist Richard Koo is out with his first comments since Janet Yellen's first FOMC meeting last week. Remember, Yellen briefly spooked markets with what some perceived to be a hawkish tone, mostly owing to the specificity with which she talked about the timing of the first rate hike. According to Koo, the US is in a "QE Trap" and both the market and the media are missing it. This trap, he says, explains the hawkish...

Feds To End Controversial Secret Alcohol Testing At Roadblocks After drawing considerable ire from the public over a program that tested drivers for drug and alcohol use — the latter secretly and without their consent — federal transportation officials today said they will no longer surreptitiously collect breath samples from drivers at roadblocks. The Associated Press reports that a National Highway Traffic Safety Administration official said roadblock testers will now get motorists' permission before using a passive alcohol sensor, which previously gathered breath samples before drivers could consent to the study. NHTSA has been conducting their National Roadside Survey of...

Former HUD-OIG Special Agent In Charge Indicted on Mortgage Fraud Charges Herschell Harvell, Jr., 53, Conyers, Georgia, made his initial appearance in federal court on charges of making false statements to a bank to obtain a mortgage loan and conspiring to obstruct an investigation into his real estate transactions by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, Office of Inspector General (HUD-OIG). Until he was terminated in 2013, Harvell was the Special Agent in Charge of HUD-OIG’s Atlanta office, which encompasses several southeastern states. Harvell’s co-defendant and nephew, Tavus A. Wright, 32, Milledgeville, Georgia, also made his initial appearance...

COINTELPRO Techniques for dilution, misdirection and control of a internet forum. There are several techniques for the control and manipulation of a internet forum no matter what, or who is on it. We will go over each technique and demonstrate that only a minimal number of operatives can be used to eventually and effectively gain a control of a 'uncontrolled forum.'

A Journal Sentinel investigation uncovered mistakes and failures in an undercover sting in Milwaukee's Riverwest neighborhood by the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives – stolen guns, sensitive documents lost, wrong people charged and a burglary of the sting storefront. ATF agents have lost track of dozens of government-issued guns, after stashing them under the front seats in their cars, in glove compartments or simply leaving them on top of their vehicles and driving away, according to internal reports from the past five years obtained by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Agents left their guns behind in bathroom stalls,...

The Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) will spend $175,000 for a study on the “swimming abilities” of fish in the Northern Rockies, the agency announced on Thursday. The FWS, a bureau within the Department of the Interior, will award a grant for the study that will produce a “fish swimming video.” The grant announcement, entitled “Cooperative Research Program on the Swimming Abilities of Native Stream Fishes in the Northern Rockies-Upper Great Plains Regions of Montana,” estimated the project’s cost at $175,000.

Less than a year after raising $1.5 million for his Bitcoin exchange start-up BitInstant, CEO Charlie Shrem has been charged with money laundering. A news release from U.S. prosecutors in Manhattan said that Shrem knowingly facilitated illegal purchases on the now-shuttered underground drug marketplace Silk Road. Silk Road was a Web site that allowed users to buy everything from heroin to fake IDs. To help preserve users´ anonymity, the site required all transactions to be conducted in bitcoins. According to the government, a man named Robert Faiella worked with Shrem to sell bitcoins to Silk Road users. The two men

DEA agent goes to pot, leaves fed agency to join marijuana industry Former DEA Agent Patrick Moen — whose career with the Drug Enforcement Administration went up in smoke when he joined the lucrative legal marijuana industry — isn't likely to spark an exodus from the agency, former colleagues say. Moen, 36, quit his post in Portland late last year and is now working for Seattle-based Privateer Holdings, a private equity firm specializing in acquiring businesses in the burgeoning marijuana industry. The attorney who once spent long days dismantling drug rings throughout the Pacific Northwest will now help the company...

Nearly a half million Californians enrolled in Obamacare health plans through the end of December, according to data released Monday. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services said 498,794 Californians picked health exchange plans, which gives the state 23 percent of the nearly 2.1 million enrollments nationwide. Considering the state has about 12 percent of the nation’s population, California has been more effective than other states in enrolling residents. The state has nearly met the lower threshold of predictions that call for 500,000 to 700,000 Californians to buy policies by March 31. “There is a feeling of optimism here...

**SNIP** When the Legislature opened on Wednesday, Senate GOP leaders said passing a gun rights bill was a top priority for the legislative session. Like last year's bill, the new version would also reduce the age requirement for concealed carry permits from 21 to 19 and prohibit municipalities from passing ordinances to limit openly carrying a firearm. Many Missouri Democrats are likely to oppose the measure again this year as an unconstitutional waste of the Legislature's time. "The state will never trump federal laws," said Sen. Jamilah Nasheed, a St. Louis Democrat. "It is again another right wing Republican attempt...

Banks Warn Fed They May Have To Start Charging Depositors Tyler Durden 11/24/2013 15:24 -0500 The Fed's Catch 22 just got catchier. While most attention in the recently released FOMC minutes fell on the return of the taper as a possibility even as soon as December (making the November payrolls report the most important ever, ever, until the next one at least), a less discussed issue was the Fed's comment that it would consider lowering the Interest on Excess Reserves to zero as a means to offset the implied tightening that would result from the reduction in the monthly flow...