Free Republic

Goosed into action by an angry federal judge, federal immigration authorities will go door-to-door demanding illegal immigrants return the three-year amnesty approvals the Obama administration issued to them in defiance of a court order. Those who don’t return their three-year permits will have them terminated at the end of this month, the National Immigrant Justice Center, one of the advocacy groups briefed on authorities’ plan, said in a statement preparing immigrants for what could be a traumatic encounter. The move comes as Homeland Security officials, fed up with slow-walking by illegal immigrants, are finally playing hardball after months of less...

A resolution in the Michigan Senate sounds the alarm that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency could soon be meddling with how outdoor barbecue-loving Americans prepare their food. Senate Concurrent Resolution 14 expresses opposition to EPA efforts to acquire a study that could lead to regulations on outdoor grills and barbecues. The EPA has commissioned a study intended, "To perform research and develop preventative technology that will reduce fine particulate emissions (PM2.5) from residential barbecues. This technology is intended to reduce air pollution as well as health hazards in Southern California, with potential for global application." Sen. Phil Pavlov, R-St. Clair,...

James Triplett had his customers lined up around the corner in broad daylight, the feds say. Not for concert tickets. Not for iPhones. For heroin. Now 42 people are facing state or federal drug charges for their alleged roles in supplying and distributing heroin around West Grenshaw and Independence in the North Lawndale neighborhood on the West Side. Among them is the 33-year-old Triplett, also known as “Trell,” who authorities said controlled the drug market in the area. Investigators even included a photo in a federal criminal complaint spanning more than 200 pages. They said the photo depicts a line...

A wildly disproportionate amount of what is proposed for healthcare reform involves technical matters. Ten years ago, the pundits assured us that the forced adoption of electronic health records would save billions and revolutionize health care. Unfortunately, EHRs have cost billions, are almost universally despised by providers, and are responsible for thousands of errors—some of which have proved to be fatal. The situation is bad enough that even the clueless Feds have decided to back off on some of their more onerous EHR requirements, at least temporarily. Other voices have suggested that the answer lies in drug discovery, massively expanded;...

Tyler Durden 06/04/2015 09:41 -0400 Anxiety over financial stability and shadow banking risks appear to have force Christine Lagarde and her fellow extrapolators to hit the panic button: •*IMF CUTS U.S. 2015 GROWTH FORECAST TO 2.5% FROM 3.1% •*FED SHOULD WAIT FOR TANGIBLE SIGNS OF WAGE, PRICE GAINS: IMF •*DOLLAR `MODERATELY OVERVALUED,' CURBING U.S. GROWTH, JOBS: IMF •*IMF URGES FED TO DELAY FIRST RATE INCREASE UNTIL 1H 2016 Adding that they viewed the Dollar as "moderately overvalued" and any more appreciation would be "harmful," it seems global disinflationary pressures have left the IMF no choice but to say publicly what...

Education Secretary Arnie Duncan is reminding parents in America “that all your children belong to them”. In a not-so-very veiled threat Secretary Duncan states the Federal Government will step in if parents continue to opt their children out of Common Core testing. (Via Doug Ross Journal) Secretary of Education Arne Duncan issued a veiled threat to the parents and students who choose to opt out of Common Core testing – The Feds “have an obligation to step in.” Federal law, under No Child Left Behind, requires 95 percent of students in a state to take the annual standardized tests in...

Bureaucrats from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) will weigh and measure children in daycare as part of a study mandated by First Lady Michelle Obama’s Healthy Hunger-Free Kids Act. The agency published a notice in the Federal Register on Friday proposing data collection on what meals are served in professional and home daycare facilities and how much physical activity children perform. Aside from assessing how healthy the food in daycare is, the USDA will also check the weight and height of roughly 3,000 children. “Children will be asked to cooperate with study staff who will weigh and measure them...

**SNIP** The website remains unfinished. Politico reported last week that the back end of Healthcare.gov “still isn’t properly wired to the health insurance companies.” Problems persist with subsidy payments, and information verification, resulting in roughly 800,000 enrollees receiving inaccurate subsidy information. “Even though consumers had a largely smooth enrollment experience this year, the fact that these gaps persist behind the scenes 18 months after HealthCare.gov launched shows that the system is still not working as intended,” Politico said. “Instead of a swift process, health plans use clunky workarounds and manual spreadsheets. It takes time and it costs money.” Kevin Counihan,...

A Nevada court has ruled FBI agents can dress up as ISP repairmen to blag their way into a suspect's home without a search warrant – but must tell the courts about it when they do. The ruling stems from a case brought by the Feds against Malaysian poker player Wei Seng Phua and his son, whom the agency accused of running an illegal betting syndicate from a luxury Las Vegas villa during last year's FIFA World Cup. The duo hired the house in the grounds of Caesars Palace casino on the famous Strip, and asked for large-screen monitors, laptops,...

The federal government is financing the development of a smartphone app that will use facial recognition technology to check attendance in college classrooms.The National Science Foundation (NSF) awarded $50,000 to Missouri University on Jan. 2 for the project that will record videos to create “face tracklets” of students.The project is necessary, the grant argues, because checking attendance the old fashioned way is too hard.“Checking attendance in scenarios such as classrooms commonly needs an instructor to recognize each student one by one by reading the names on a roster or ask students to sign up the attendance sheet,” the grant explains....

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is looking for vendors to run its "National Data Warehouse," a database for "capturing, aggregating, and analyzing information" related to beneficiary and customer experiences with Medicare and the federal Obamacare marketplaces. Although the database primarily consists of quality control metrics related to individuals' interactions with customer service, potential contractors are to "[d]emonstrate ... experience with scalability and security in protecting data and information with customer, person-sensitive information including Personal Health Information and Personally Identifiable information (personal health records, etc.)." Vendors are also instructed that one of the requirements of a possible future...

I’m interested in the current Federal funding bill. Below is a list of Federal Departments, starting with the original four enumerated in the Constitution. For each Department, what percentage of their current budget do you think should be granted in this budget? Are there any departments that should be eliminated entirely from Federal funding and purview? After this list there are links that further flesh out the extent of the Federal leviathan, with further “government agencies and corporations” that could perhaps have their budgets cut or entirely eliminated. Enjoy! Departments of: (with my recommended funding levels) 1. Defense: 150% 2....

WASHINGTON — The federal government has significantly expanded undercover operations in recent years, with officers from at least 40 agencies posing as business people, welfare recipients, political protesters and even doctors or ministers to ferret out wrongdoing, records and interviews show. At the Supreme Court, small teams of undercover officers dress as students at large demonstrations outside the courthouse and join the protests to look for suspicious activity, according to officials familiar with the practice. At the Internal Revenue Service, dozens of undercover agents chase suspected tax evaders worldwide, by posing as tax preparers, accountants drug dealers or yacht buyers...

"AUSTIN, November 14, 2014– A Texas legislator has introduced a new bill to derail the enforcement of virtually all federal gun control measures within the state’s borders. Landreth has suggested that this could create a domino effect. Introduced by newly re-elected State Representative Tim Kleinschmidt (R-Lexington), House Bill 176 (HB176) declares all federal restrictions on the right to keep and bear arms to be “invalid” and “not enforceable” within the state of Texas. It bill reads, in part: A federal law, including a statute, an executive, administrative, or court order, or a rule, that infringes on a law-abiding citizen’s right...

It’s called a Stingray: A cellphone surveillance device so top secret, law enforcement agencies don’t even like to admit they have it. But KPIX 5 has confirmed Oakland, San Francisco and San Jose police are using Stingrays to track suspects. Now, Fremont Police and the Alameda County District Attorney’s office are applying for federal grants to get a new version of Stingray, called Hailstorm. The use of the devices is increasing, potentially at the expense of your privacy. You may think you are private when you’re talking on your cell phone, think again. From an undercover car or even strapped...

Federal regulators are attempting to lower credit and lending standards for home mortgage loans during a time when there is little demand for housing, some experts say, a move that could create another destabilizing bubble if the economy improves.

Tyler Durden 11/11/2014 A funny thing happened on the way to the ‘end’ of the multi-trillion dollar bond buying program known as QE - the Fed chronicles. Aside from the shift to a globalization of QE via the European Central Bank (ECB) and Bank of Japan (BOJ) as I wrote about earlier, what lingers in the air of “post-taper” time is an absence of absence. For QE is not over. Instead, in the United States, the process has simply morphed from being predominantly executed by the Federal Reserve (Fed) to being executed by its major private bank members. Fed Chair,...

The federal government said Tuesday it will soon move to close a loophole in Obamacare that could allow big employers to refuse to cover employees' hospitalizations. That loophole is significant because hospital-stay costs can quickly become high. The loophole is linked to Obamacare rules that will require mid- to large-size employers starting in 2015 to offer affordable health plans to employers or pay a fine.

ORLANDO, Fla. — It's a multimillion-dollar problem, putting pressure on the United States immigration system. Now federal officials admit more than 52,000 unaccompanied children who illegally crossed the nation’s southwest border this year could be anywhere. Eyewitness News found out more than 4,000 of the children made their way to Florida, and Channel 9's Stephanie Bertini found one teenaged boy living in central Florida. He agreed to speak with her as long as his identity was not revealed. The boy’s footprints mark the pathway of an illegal journey fueled by dreams. “We had to walk a lot… and we only...

Justice Department investigators have all but concluded they do not have a strong enough case to bring civil rights charges against Darren Wilson, the white police officer who shot and killed an unarmed black teenager in Ferguson, Mo., according to law enforcement officials. When racial tension boiled over in Ferguson after the Aug. 9 shooting, Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. traveled to the St. Louis suburb to meet with city leaders and protest organizers in an effort to bring calm. He assured them that the federal government would open a civil rights investigation into the fatal shooting of Michael...