Free Republic

Starting in the fall of 2010, ten leading Democrats - including Max Baucus, Chuck Schumer, and Al Franken - wrote the IRS demanding that the agency crack down on conservative groups. 500 conservative and Christian groups were illegally targeted by the Obama IRS starting in 2010. For twenty-seven months the Obama IRS refused to approve any Tea Party applications for tax-exempt status while at the same time the Obama IRS approved dozens of progressive applications. Now these same top Democrats are feigning outrage.

In Brooklyn, the district attorney’s office has ordered that about 50 murder cases — all linked to one detective — be reviewed because of questions about the officer’s tactics. Cook County, which also has a number of controversial cases linked to a single detective, should order a similar review. Dozens of defendants and witnesses over the years have alleged that retired Area 5 Chicago Police Detective Reynaldo Guevara beat and threatened them into making false statements. That doesn’t mean the allegations are true. But there are enough complaints to make these cases ideal candidates for the state’s attorney’s Conviction Integrity...

In the wake of a pair of terrorists slaying a British soldier in the streets of London, talk show host Michael Savage pointed out Wednesday one key difference between the United States and the United Kingdom: Second Amendment rights. “Now what stands between us and what happened in London?” Savage asked. “Guns, guns, guns — only guns, only guns. And this very same gang that wants to flood this country with 50 million, 30 million, 20 million, 11 million — you pick the number, pick it out of a hat — illegal aliens, it’s all amnesty for every one of...

It’s not a stretch to suggest that Americans are over medicated. In 2011 doctors across the nation wrote an astounding four billion medical prescriptions, amounting to an average of 13 prescriptions for every man, woman and child in the United States. In the next few weeks the American Psychiatric Associations is releasing their updated fifth version their Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5); the so-called ‘bible’ of psychiatric diagnoses. The new manual promises to take mental illness and the use of prescription drugs to a whole new level. You may not be considered “crazy” or “mentally ill” today,...

When you get right down to it,the political targeting and stalling of tax-exempt applications by the IRS was an effort to defund the Tea Party. Rick Santelli,one of the Tea Party founders and my CNBC colleague,was the first to make this point. I’ve taken it a step further: The IRS was taking the Tea Party out of play for the 2012 election,as it looked to avoid a repeat of 2010 and another Tea Party landslide.… But there can be only one reason for the stalled-out approval process for conservative groups. The IRS was trying to put them out of business....

Cold Case Posse Commander Mike Zullo of the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office on submitted a devastating 57 page 207 paragraph affidavit to the Alabama Obama ballot challenge appeal case that is before the Alabama Supreme Court. He did this at the request of Attorney Larry Klayman representing the appellants. Now Alabama Democratic Party attorney's Barry Ragsdale and Thomas Woodall have fired back with a 'Opposition To Motion To Strike'. They slam Zullo and the Cold Case Posse's evidence confirming Obama's birth certificate and selective service registration card are forgeries. They state in their motion to strike that Mike Zullo's affidavit...

In this riveting interview Mike answers 9+ questions from listeners, viewers, and bloggers who desire more detail in this case.

Annals of the Security State: More Airplane Stories James Fallows May 21 2013 "My dad fought a war so this can never happen in America. I will not dishonor my father's memory by giving up what he fought for. No, sir. With all due respect, I will not consent to a search without a proper warrant." Over the weekend I related the story of Gabriel Silverstein, a businessman and pilot who for no apparent reason was subjected to a two-hour detention and invasive search by Homeland Security officials as he traveled across the country in his small plane. The picture...

In a startling exchange Wednesday during the IRS hearings before the House Oversight and Reform Committee, America learned that the IRS knew in May of 2012 that its employees were targeting conservative organization with paralyzing harassment and Kafka-esque audits. Although the IRS knew this, they did not report this information to Congress. "While a tremendous amount of attention is centered about the Inspector General's report, or investigation, the committee has learned from Ms. Paz that she in fact participated in an IRS internal investigation that concluded in May of 2012 - May 3 of 2012 - and found essentially the...

In the fallout from the recent revelations about the Internal Revenue Service systematically persecuting conservative political groups and other enemies of President Obama, the establishment is putting on a good show of being shocked by the behavior. The reality is that the IRS is and always has been a tool of oppression and is routinely used by those in power to destroy their opponents. Once the income tax expanded to include nearly every wage-earner and company in the country, it was immediately seized upon as a potent weapon by the worst tyrants in American history. Franklin Roosevelt loved the IRS...

The persecution and prosecution of Gibson Guitar stands out as a prime example of government overreach, similar to IRS Tea Party targeting. This video explains the insanity of the raid and ultimate charges — very technical and disputed interpretations of Indian law as to the importation of wood used in the guitars. This had nothing to do with conservation or protection of forests, it had to do with India keeping jobs in India, and insane paperwork requirements in the U.S. The trees would have been cut and the wood used regardless of how Gibson....Civil liberties lawyer Harvey Silverglate wrote about...

The unfolding IRS scandal is a symptom, not the disease. For decades, campaign-finance reform zealots have sought to limit core political speech through spending limits and disclosure requirements. More recently, they have claimed that it is wrong and dangerous for tax-exempt entities to engage in political speech. The Obama administration shares these views, especially when conservative, small-government organizations are involved, and the IRS clearly got the message. While the agency must be investigated and reformed, the ultimate cure for these abuses is to unshackle political speech by all groups, including tax-exempt ones, from arbitrary and unconstitutional government regulation. Beginning in...

A couple of weeks ago, President Obama warned college grads about crazy people (like John Adams, for example) who warn about the constant threat of tyranny in government... He might have to give that speech to a few more groups, because a new poll suggests that Americans are going with John Adams:

ARMED DHS GUARDS greeted St. Louis Tea Party protesters at the Town and Country IRS office on Tuesday. Around 300 protesters turned out anyway. DHS parked their vehicles right outside the IRS office just in case the Tea Party protesters got crazy and violent. But the DHS intimidation was not isolated to St. Louis. In Los Angeles DHS put a chopper in the air and told Tea Party protesters they could not be on federal property. They had to move away from the building. This report came from a Tea Party protester in California. Many of our 300 tea party...

The US Attorney for the District of Columbia, Ronald C. Machen - the man responsible for the aggressive surveillance and phone record scrutiny at Fox News - is also a big donor to the Obama Campaigns. At the time of his appointment, the Washington Post wrote a profile on Machen including this tidbit: Over the years, he has donated $4,350 to Obama's campaigns. He gave $250 to Obama's U.S. Senate campaign in 2003, a year before Obama, then an Illinois state senator, emerged on the nation's political radar, according to campaign finance records.

The Progressive believes in precisely two things: his own magnificence and the constructive power of brute force. In combination, they lead him naturally from the role of pestiferous busybody to brutal dictator. Where the productive man dreams of the things he might create if only left alone by his fellows, the Progressive dreams of the world he could create if only the lives and property of his fellows were at his disposal. The roots of his pathology lie in that oldest and most destructive of all human vices, the desire for the power to rule over other men. As...

Justice Seized White House, Fox Phone Records Tuesday, May 21, 2013 08:01 PM By: Todd Beamon The Justice Department seized the telephone records of at least five Fox News reporters and several White House staffers in connection with the 2009 probe into a former State Department contractor who is accused of leaking classified information to Fox journalist James Rosen. The disclosure came in a document filed in the case of the former contractor, Stephen Jin-Woo Kim, on October 13, 2011, The New Yorker reported today.

Inspector General Michael E. Horowitz said ATF Agent John Dodson had provided significant information and public testimony on the agency’s handling of the Fast and Furious probe and “was retaliated against by” U.S. Attorney Dennis Burke with the unauthorized disclosure in late June 2011 of an ATF memo the agent had drafted. In the report, the inspector general said Mr. Burke, who resigned after Fast and Furious had become media fodder, provided the memo to Fox News in violation of Justice Department policies — a disclosure that “was likely motivated by a desire to undermine” Mr. Dodson’s public criticisms. The...

If you weren't excited from the explosions-filled Man of Steel movie trailer before, after seeing this final trailer that teases General Zod threatening Earth, you will be. It shows more of the conflict of the film and reveals even more insane action sequences. In the trailer, which is probably the final one before the movie releases next month on June 14, you hear Michael Shannon as General Zod demand that Kal-El surrender himself or Earth will suffer consequences. This is going to be a good one, huh. [WarnerBros]

Coburn is sticking to his fiscally conservative principles, even after a twister killed at least 24 of his constituents On Tuesday morning, emergency responders began dealing with the aftermath of a tornado that killed at least 24 people in Moore, Okla., and injured at least 140 more. The White House has announced that "the administration and FEMA stand ready to provide all available assistance in response to the severe weather." However, one of the state's two Republican senators, Tom Coburn, wants to put a stipulation on that offer: No federal aid without corresponding federal budget cuts.

Carney Compares Questions about Scandals to Birth-Cerificate Inquiries By Andrew Johnson May 21, 2013 2:49 PM Jay Carney tried to move past questions about the series of scandals surrounding the Obama administration by comparing them to questions about the president’s birth certificate at today’s press conference. Major Garrett asked Carney if the White House thought Republican inquiries were “legitimate” on the issues of Benghazi, the IRS, the Department of Justice targeting reporters, and the Department of Health and Human Service’s efforts to raise funds from private companies for promoting the health-care law. “We could go down the list of questions...

Barack Obama’s “legacy” continues to erode as more and more corruption, government abuse of power, lying, and cover up stories are exposed and made public. In the latest derailment of the Obama tyranny express, it has been reported by The Washington Post, of all institutions, that Eric Holder and Barack Obama have declared all-out war against conservative media types at FOX NEWS. James Rosen, the network’s chief Washington correspondent, has become a First Amendment cause celebre over his treatment by the Obama administration. But the DOJ, Fox says, also investigated the Emmy Award-winning investigative reporter William La Jeunesse and Fox...

A new poll finds that a majority of Americans believes the Internal Revenue Service targeting scandal was an intentional effort to harass conservative political groups. In a Washington Post/ABC News poll released Tuesday, 56 percent said the IRS use of higher scrutiny on Tea Party groups seeking tax-exempt status was a deliberate move, with 31 percent calling it an “administrative mistake.” A strong majority, 74 percent, said the IRS moves were inappropriate to 20 percent who said they were appropriate. Fifty-one percent also said they believe those actions were illegal to 44 who said they were inappropriate but not against...

Over / under Appropriate / inappropriate: 30 Any reference to investigations: 50 Ask somebody else: 25Odds “Mistakes were made” 200:1 Carney is confronted on his bald faced lies about WH role in sanitizing Benghazi talking points: 10:1Benghazi Emails Directly Contradict White House Claims WH Live Stream

The IRS has admitted to harassing conservative groups seeking tax exempt status, singling out for extra special scrutiny organizations which featured “patriot” or “tea party” designations in their name. We now know that a number of these groups were forced to withdraw their applications, being unable or unwilling to continue what in some cases had become a 3 year battle with the corrupt federal agency. But few in the media have bothered to ask who directed the IRS to engage in this criminal behavior. It has been reported that Senators Chuck Schumer and Al Franken addressed a letter to IRS...

Internal Revenue Service officials not only wanted a wide variety of information from the Albuquerque Tea Party's application for non-profit status, it also wanted to know what contacts it had with people from other political organizations too. That included an 83-year-old great-grandmother who was once held in a World War II internment camp, New Mexico Watchdog has discovered. "I've always paid my taxes and everything," Marianne Chiffelle told New Mexico Watchdog. "What I do think is, it doesn't surprise me...because of this government we have at the moment." According to a review of documents conducted by the online news organization...

A new Washington Post poll finds Americans believe the targeting of pro-life groups and conservatives by the International Revenue service was a deliberate act. “As you may know it’s been disclosed that the IRS singled out some conservative political groups for extra questions about their tax status. Do you think it was appropriate or inappropriate for the IRS to do this?” the poll asked. Some 74 percent of respondents say it was inappropriate compared to just 20 percent who say it was appropriate. Another 51 percent said they thought the IRS actions were illegal while 44 percent said they were...

MADISON — Federal health bureaucrats know applying for health insurance through the federal health care exchanges won’t be easy. If it were, there wouldn’t be the need for tens of thousands of taxpaye- backed “navigators,” new positions that soon will be created to help steer consumers through the rough waters of Obamacare. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services will provide Wisconsin with $829,300 in navigator grant funds as part of the $54 million HHS set aside nationally for one year’s worth of navigators. There is $1.7 million more available for community health centers through HHS. Republicans on the...

With three full-blown scandals currently surrounding the Obama administration, there are too many “-gates” to name just one. There is the cover-up of the fatal Benghazi terrorist attack, the IRS targeting conservatives, and the Justice Department spying on members of the press. The level of corruption is so high right now it is like Saul Alinsky is running the White House. Alinsky, the radical activist who wrote Rules for Radicals, which he dedicated to Satan, taught the radical left to use dishonest tactics in order to achieve their agenda – “by any means necessary.” He advocated lying and harassing those...

Drudge editor and Washington Times staff writer has been tweeting since May 14th... "Drudge editor Joseph Curl: ‘CIA source says still one more shoe to drop’ for Obama admin" And again today via Red Flag News... "CIA: Fox News Scandal “Goes Much Deeper,” White House Sitting On Something that has Top Obama Aides “Terrified." And again via Fox News today... http://nation.foxnews.com/james-rosen/2013/05/20/you-must-read-tweet-joseph-curl

Between 1986 and 2001, Lerner served as head of investigations for the Federal Election Commission. From that post, Hemingway relates, she launched a lengthy, very expensive and ultimately fruitless investigation of the Christian Coalition...[A]ttorneys deposed Lt. Col. Oliver North, who had run for Senate in Virginia in 1994. Hemingway produces a stunning transcript of this deposition, in which the FEC's attorney ruthlessly interrogates North about an offhand remark he made in a letter, thanking Christian Broadcaster Pat Robertson for his "kind regards and prayers."

Perhaps no other IRS official is more intimately associated with the tax agency's growing scandal than Lois Lerner, director of the IRS’s Exempt Organizations Division. Since admitting the IRS harassed hundreds of conservative and Tea Party groups for over two years, Lerner has been criticized for a number of untruths—including the revelation that she apparently lied about planting a question at an American Bar Association conference where she first publicly acknowledged IRS misconduct.

President Obama believes in the public sector. He thinks it should be made ever more expansive and entrusted with ever more complicated tasks. Its unions should be powerful. It should be hailed by all the great and good, and attract the nation’s best and brightest. This is how the president portrays the public sector at a level of glittering generality. Then there’s the reality of all that government that is too big for him to monitor, the workings of which he learns about only when he reads the newspapers and watches TV. There’s the incompetence, the dishonesty and the self-justification....

Monday afternoon, ABC News released a chilling report that details what journalists have faced while trying to get some answers from the Cincinnati IRS office, which is where a majority of the Tea Party targeting took place. According to ABC, an "armed uniform police officer with the Federal Protective Service" "escorted" reporters through the public building. ABC says if the intent wasn't to "scare off" employees who might talk, "it was the effect."

Scandal Watch: Despite White House attempts to brush the IRS scandal aside as "irrelevant" or the work of rogue miscreants, huge questions remain about who ordered IRS agents to harass Tea Party groups, and why. Every day, in fact, raises new and more disturbing questions that congressional investigators must get answers to. Among them:

"Progressivism, liberalism, or whatever you want to call it has become an ideology of power. So long as liberals hold it, principles don’t matter." -- Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left, From Mussolini to the Politics of Meaning “We are fast approaching the stage of the ultimate inversion: the stage where the government is free to do anything it pleases, while the citizens may act only by permission; which is the stage of the darkest periods of human history, the stage of rule by brute force.” -- Ayn Rand One of the most disturbing things about...

This IRS politicization is not an isolated problem. It is an inevitable result of the broader efforts to regulate and, in fact, suppress political speech. The IRS crackdown on tax-exemption approvals for conservative groups was directed at nonprofit social-welfare groups, often called 501(c)(4)s after the Internal Revenue Code section granting them tax-exempt status. Such groups do not have to disclose their donors and are exempt from most taxation, although donations to them generally aren't tax deductible. Social-welfare organizations are permitted to engage in a range of political activities promoting their causes or beliefs, so long as these activities aren't their...

The Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 was originally established to protect American citizens from the federal use of military troops to enforce and execute the laws of the land unless expressly authorized by the Constitution or Congress. Since then, for over a century, this task has fallen upon local and federal law enforcement. But with the War on Terror taking center stage in the United States for the last decade, elements within the government have been working tirelessly to expand the mission of the US military on the domestic front. First, they passed the Patriot Act, which gave the government...

President Obama directing the arm of a Marine to hold an umbrella to protect him while he spoke to the press seemed to ooze with the symbolism of an Imperial Presidency. The common thread of the Associated Press Scandal, IRS Scandal, Benghazi Scandal, and now a revival of the Fast and Furious Scandal all speak to an Administration exercising unlimited power in the pursuit of their agenda, while also exercising unlimited power in punishing anyone that gets in their way. The Obama Imperial Presidency reminds me of the attitude of British King George III about the American colonies: “A traitor...

Given last week's revelation that the IRS targeted conservative groups seeking tax-exempt status, it's worth recalling President Obama's Ohio State University commencement address. The president decried "voices" warning "that tyranny is always lurking just around the corner." It's no longer lurking. It's here. Testimony before the House Ways and Means Committee by the outgoing acting IRS commissioner, Steve Miller, as well as numerous statements by individuals claiming they have been harassed and intimidated by IRS agents, reveal a government agency out of control, or more precisely, under the control of political hacks. It's doubtful this was a freelance operation. J....

Since D.C. officials refused to turn over any documents about their investigation and decision not to prosecute NBC News’ David Gregory, we have to depend on the Freedom of Information Act to force transparency. Mayor Vincent Gray’s office, however, responded to my request by deflecting. It turned out, he was hiding information. On March 11, I sent a detailed request to FOIA Officer Mikelle DeVillier in the Executive Office of the Mayor. I asked for all documents about Mr. Gregory’s possession of an illegal 30-round magazine. Government agencies are required to respond to a FOIA request within 15 working days. Ms. DeVillier...

The sheriffs thought they were being summoned to the Capitol to discuss ideas for changes to New York's gun control law, the SAFE Act. Instead, Gov. Andrew Cuomo told them to keep quiet. (...) Cuomo invited its leaders to the Capitol last month, people briefed on the meeting said. The group included Sheriffs' Association Executive Director Peter Kehoe and Chemung County Sheriff Christopher Moss. "We didn't get a response (to the analysis) from him, but we could tell after the budget was passed that none of those recommendations were taken into consideration," Moss said. "When we got there, we never...

The Battle of Athens (sometimes called the McMinn County War) was a rebellion led by citizens in Athens and Etowah, Tennessee, United States, against the local government in August 1946. The citizens, including some World War II veterans, accused the local officials of political corruption and voter intimidation. Here is what happened: Following World War II in 1946, violence erupted when returning American soldiers discovered their Tennessee county had been taken over by political corruption. Their plan to take it back involved bullets—lots of bullets—and dynamite. Why Athens in McMinn County, Tennessee became a battleground was due to Paul Cantrell,...

"In two weeks the naysayers will find out just how wrong they have been" - Mike Zullo

The Justice Department obtained a portfolio of information about a Fox News correspondent's conversations and visits as part of an investigation into a possible leak, The Washington Post reported Monday -- in the latest example of the government seizing records of journalists. The information follows the charge that the department secretly obtained two months of phone records from Associated Press journalists as part of a separate leak probe. In the case involving Fox News' James Rosen, a government adviser was accused of leaking information after a 2009 story was published online which said North Korea planned to respond to looming...

Move on to What? By Chris Stirewalt Published May 20, 2013 | FoxNews.com “Already, officials that would normally talk to us, and people we talk to in the normal course of newsgathering are already saying to us that they’re a little reluctant to talk to us. They fear that they will be monitored by the government…It’s not hypothetical, we’re actually seeing impact already.” -- Gary Pruitt, president of the Associated Press, on “Face the Nation.” How does an administration move on from scandals that are still unfolding? The answer: Not very effectively. President Obama and his team tried last week...

Fewer groups sught recognition as 501 (c)(4) social welfare organizations that year than in 2009, according to the Treasury Department. ...

It is now well known that the Obama justice department has prosecuted more government leakers under the 1917 Espionage Act than all prior administrations combined - in fact, double the number of all such prior prosecutions. But as last week's controversy over the DOJ's pursuit of the phone records of AP reporters illustrated, this obsessive fixation in defense of secrecy also targets, and severely damages, journalists specifically and the newsgathering process in general.

Daniele Perazzi, president of the Italian Perazzi Shotguns firm, was taken into custody yesterday by Adams County Deputies [see update, below] along with several prototype shotguns. The executive was picked up in the parking lot of the Denver Merchandise Mart, hosting the high-end Colorado Gun Collectors show this weekend, after a taxi driver, likely reacting to a suspicious activity reporting outreach program conducted by law enforcement, told authorities he thought he could be transporting an armed “foreign speaking” terror suspect. “He loaded prototype shotguns into the cab on the way to the Merchandise Mart,” gun rights activist and newly-elected National...

The IRS scandal keeps getting closer and closer to the top of the White House food chain as Obama officials desperately try to spin their way out of mounting evidence and foul play. The Wall Street Journal is reporting President Obama's top attorney knew about the IRS targeting weeks ago before news broke, but of course, Obama still didn't know about it until he learned about it "from the news." The White House's chief lawyer learned weeks ago that an audit of the Internal Revenue Service likely would show that agency employees inappropriately targeted conservative groups, a senior White House...