Free Republic

....Eric Holder this month sent a scathing letter to Gov. Rick Scott over voting changes in Florida and issued a warning that the Justice Department is “carefully monitoring” the state....

In a recent Politico Magazine article titled, “Let’s Talk About Death Panels,” Harold Pollack urges reviving one of the most notorious proposals that did not make it into the Obama Health Car Law – “advance planning consultations.”During the debate over Obamacare’s enactment, there was considerable controversy over a provision in an early version under which health care providers would have been paid by Medicare to discuss with their patients whether they would want life-saving medical treatment.After former Alaska governor and vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin dubbed the planning sessions “death panels,” the provision was dropped from the law ultimately enacted.As Pollack...

A former U.S. officer who served in Afghanistan with Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl claims that soldiers were threatened by U.S. authorities if they questioned his story. After he was captured, Bergdahl said on a video from his captors that he lagged behind on patrol, although other sources in the military suggested anonymously that he walked away from his post. “Not only has this nebulous non-story been put out for years but you know these soldiers of 4th Brigade 25th Infantry Division were threatened with legal repercussions if they spoke about Bergdahl. Everybody officially mandated silencing of what we saw has been...

My wife and I are in our mid fifties. We are grandparents. We have tried to play by the rules. Yesterday, I came home from lunch to find his and her notices in our mailbox from the IRS. The fiends have recalculated our income from a few years back and now suddenly want over 21,000 dollars in fees and penalties. They don't even audit you anymore. They just recalculate and demand payment. This is how they operate. So if this thing is worked out, we will pay five hundred bucks a month to the IRS for most of our remaining...

OMG Stunning Moment of Honesty MSNBC’s Ratigan Admits Left is Scared to Criticize Obama Because He is a Black Liberal http://www.theblaze.com/stories/omg-stunning-moment-of-honesty-msnbcs-ratigan-admits-left-is-scared-to-criticize-obama-because-hes-a-black-liberal/

His tweet, and I quote: DickinsonForCongress, ‏@VoteMike2014If you live in VA and can run this tag- I want to expose this tea party idiot. pic.twitter.com/7NidEu7A9F

--snip-- A plan to honor a Harlem cop killed by Nation of Islam radicals is drowning under a flood of racial tensions created more than four decades ago, but no one wants to throw it a lifeline — not even the NYPD’s new top cop. Police Commissioner Bill Bratton is distancing himself from the controversial push to get the street in front of the 28th Precinct renamed in honor of Officer Phillip Cardillo, who was shot and killed inside a mosque run by Louis Farrakhan in 1972 — noting that the community should make the final decision.

Recently departed CBS News reporter Sharyl Attkisson appeared with Howard Kurtz on Fox's Media Buzz on Sunday. Kurtz said her forthcoming book is titled “Stonewalled: My Fight for Truth Against the Forces of Obstruction, Intimidation, and Harassment in Obama’s Washington.” Kurtz asked her to define those forces. "I think any journalist who has been covering Washington for a few years would agree… that there is pressure coming to bear on journalists for just doing their job in ways that have never come to bear before."

The Christian organization Focus on the Family is releasing a movie in theaters May 6 called “Irreplaceable” about the value of traditional families, the importance of fathers being engaged in their children’s lives and the healing power of forgiveness. But apparently to some advocates for the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender, or LGBT, community, that’s a cardinal sin. LGBT advocates have launched an effort to disparage the movie online, petition against it and work to make sure “Irreplaceable” isn’t seen in your local theater. Focus President Jim Daly reports in a blog post that some of the more than 700...

Missouri elementary teacher Susan Kimball testified before the Missouri Senate Education Committee that she has been threatened and bullied for her opposition to Common Core.

Lawrence Roehrig, international vice president of AFSCME and secretary treasurer of Michigan AFSCME Council 25, defended the union’s decision to publish the names of hospital workers who opted out of the union. “Social pressure is one of the time-honored ways the union has used to encourage people to accept their responsibility to join,” Roehrig said. “If a non-joiner can keep his apostasy secret he will be able to shirk his responsibility without consequence. If he knows he will be unmasked he will be more inclined to do the right thing.” Roehrig maintained that “the people opting out are doing so...

You Tube video

Whether Democrat or Republican, do you really want your private tax information leaked with impunity? On March 9, 2010, around 10 a.m., I announced my plans to run for senate representing Delaware. Later that same day, my office received a call from a reporter asking about my taxes. It’s since come out, after a halting and unenthusiastic investigation, that a Delaware Department of Revenue employee named David Smith accessed my records that day at approximately 2 p.m. — out of curiosity, he says. That these records ended up in the hands of the press is just a coincidence, the IRS...

The Federal Communications Commission plan to send “researchers” into newsrooms in order to observe how stories are selected and reported has sparked fears of government intimidation and censorship. Jay Sekulow, chief counsel of the American Center for Law and Justice, said “the mere presence of agents of the government may exert a subtle pressure to slant reporting in a way that deters critical coverage of Administration policies.” Ajit Pai, one of the FCC's Commissioners, voiced his concern that “this claimed 'information gathering effort' to ascertain the 'philosophy' behind how those in the news media do their jobs could stifle dissent....

Bristling from what he characterized as “disrespectful and abusive treatment” he received during an interview, President Obama vowed never to appear on Fox News again. “After I agreed to sacrifice some of my precious time in order to grant Mr. O’Reilly an interview prior to the Super Bowl I was greeted with insistent and intrusive questioning on topics I didn’t want to talk about,” Obama complained. “Worse, my veracity was impugned. Rather than just accept my word, Mr. Reilly seemed determined to demand some sort of independent verification, some sort of external evidence. I am not accustomed to being treated...

Has Marxist/Leninist pal of Bill Ayers Mike Klonsky just given us the reason for the arrest of conservative writer Dinesh D'Souza? Does he have inside information? On January 24, Klonsky dashed off a quick "note" to D'Souza on his Small Talk Blog:

A woman critical of politics in a small Missouri town says she received intimidating notes last week threatening to reveal supposed “sexually explicit” emails involving her unless she “back[s] away” from the city now. The note, with the words spelled out from what appears to be magazine clippings, suggests that unless Erin Kasten, 39, of Pevely halts her criticism of city politics, embarrassing emails will be leaked to her friends, family and even the public. The 39-year-old says she received the note at work on Friday. “We have copies of sexually explicit emails that we don’t think you would like...

Bill Elliot was a cancer patient who lost his insurance due to ObamaCare and couldn’t pay the expensive new premiums. He was talking about paying the ObamaCare fine, going without health insurance and “letting nature take its course.”CLICK ABOVE LINK FOR THE VIDEO He went on FOX News where his story was picked up by C. Steven Tucker, a health insurance broker who helped him keep his insurance.Now suddenly Bill Elliot is being audited for 2009 with an interview only scheduled in April 2014. Assuming he lives that long. That might be a coincidence, but Tucker is being audited...

Conservative political entities who supported Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker are being subjected to a secret investigation. Special Prosecutor Francis Schmitz has issued a series of subpoenas to 29 conservative groups, demanding that they submit all documentation related to the recall campaigns mounted by unions and their supporters against Walker in 2011 and 2012. The investigation is being conducted under the auspices of the state’s John Doe law, which forbids the targets of subpoenas from revealing the contents of those subpoenas to anyone other than their lawyers. The effort reeks of political intimidation. According to the Wall Street Journal, the two...

Labor leaders and businesses are closely watching a Supreme Court case to be argued this Wednesday that involves a popular strategy used by unions to successfully organize hundreds of thousands of workers. That strategy — widely deployed by the Service Employees International Union and the Unite Here hotel workers union — involves pressuring an employer into signing a so-called neutrality agreement in which the employer promises not to oppose a unionization drive. By some estimates, more than half of the recent successful unionization campaigns involve such agreements, which sometimes allow union organizers onto company property to talk with workers. Benjamin...