Free Republic

The FDA is stockpiling military weapons — and it’s not alone AMERICA’S GUN CULTURE has been a subject of intense interest and controversy for years, with concerns frequently raised about shadowy militias, paramilitary extremists, and unstable zealots in possession of alarming quantities of explosives and firearms. Amid the current din over assault weapons and body armor, consider one domestic organization’s fearsome arsenal of military-style equipment. In the space of eight years, the group amassed a stockpile of pistols, shotguns, and semiautomatic rifles, along with ample supplies of ammunition, liquid explosives, gun scopes, and suppressors. In its cache as well are...

Editor’s Note: Conservatives know they are under assault. What many may not know (because the media hasn’t told them) is that they are the targets of a coordinated, well-honed campaign by the left to push conservatives entirely out of the political debate. The Intimidation Game is the first real telling of what happened at the IRS—how elected Democrats used that agency to muzzle tens of thousands of Tea Party members during two elections. It's the real story of how a liberal Wisconsin prosecutor used secret subpoenas and predawn raids to silence 30 conservative grassroots organizations in that state. It's the...

After more than four years, two congressional hearings, and countless pleas to the IRS and Justice Department, Randy Sowers’ fight with the federal government is finally coming to a close.The Internal Revenue Service is returning the $29,500 it took from the Frederick County, Maryland, dairy farmer, ending his long journey through the civil asset forfeiture system.“When you’re in kindergarten, you learn that if you’ve taken something that doesn’t belong to you, you have to give it back,” Rob Johnson, a lawyer with the Institute for Justice who represented Sowers, told The Daily Signal. “In this case, the IRS has taken...

Recently obtained documents raise new questions about Lois Lerner’s role in sending confidential tax returns to the Justice Department. It is likely the largest unauthorized disclosure of tax-return information in history: the transfer of some 1.25 million pages of confidential tax returns from the IRS to the Department of Justice in October of 2010. And it was almost certainly illegal. The documents, which consisted chiefly of non-profit tax returns, were transferred to the DOJ’s criminal division from the IRS at the request of Lois Lerner, who wanted to get the information to the DOJ in advance of a meeting where...

Justice: IRS official Lois Lerner didn't merely target conservative groups to take away their tax-free status, as first suspected, but also handed over more than a million pages of tax returns to the Justice Department. That's a crime.

The Environmental Protection Agency has spent millions of dollars over the last decade on military-style weapons to arm its 200 “special agents” to fight environmental crime. Among the weapons purchased are guns, body armor, camouflage equipment, unmanned aircraft, amphibious assault ships, radar and night-vision gear and other military-style weaponry and surveillance activities, according to a new report by the watchdog group Open the Books. “Protecting the environment just got real. With millions of dollars spent on military style weaponry, the EPA is now literally ensconced with all institutional force,” said Adam Andrzejewski, founder of Open the Books and the author...

Special agents at the IRS equipped with AR-15 military-style rifles? Health and Human Services "Special Office of Inspector General Agents" being trained by the Army’s Special Forces contractors? The Department of Veterans Affairs arming 3,700 employees? The number of non-Defense Department federal officers authorized to make arrests and carry firearms (200,000) now exceeds the number of U.S. Marines (182,000). In its escalating arms and ammo stockpiling, this federal arms race is unlike anything in history. Over the last 20 years, the number of these federal officers with arrest-and-firearm authority has nearly tripled to over 200,000 today, from 74,500 in 1996....

After grabbing legal power, bureaucrats are amassing firepower. It’s time to scale back the federal arsenal. Special agents at the IRS equipped with AR-15 military-style rifles? Health and Human Services “Special Office of Inspector General Agents” being trained by the Army’s Special Forces contractors? The Department of Veterans Affairs arming 3,700 employees? The number of non-Defense Department federal officers authorized to make arrests and carry firearms (200,000) now exceeds the number of U.S. Marines (182,000). In its escalating arms and ammo stockpiling, this federal arms race is unlike anything in history. Over the last 20 years, the number of these...

Special agents at the IRS equipped with AR-15 military-style rifles? Health and Human Services “Special Office of Inspector General Agents” being trained by the Army’s Special Forces contractors? The Department of Veterans Affairs arming 3,700 employees? The number of non-Defense Department federal officers authorized to make arrests and carry firearms (200,000) now exceeds the number of U.S. Marines (182,000). In its escalating arms and ammo stockpiling, this federal arms race is unlike anything in history. Over the last 20 years, the number of these federal officers with arrest-and-firearm authority has nearly tripled to over 200,000 today, from 74,500 in 1996....

It's the stuff of libertarian dreams. The IRS admits that it wrongfully took money from innocent citizens, and it gives the money back. This is actually happening to victims of a little-known form of civil asset forfeiture carried out by the IRS on the premise of "structuring" violations. In case you didn't know, depositing or withdrawing just under $10,000 from your bank account multiple times is viewed as suspicious and possibly criminal activity. In a victory for lawmakers working to make it harder for the government to take property from innocent Americans, the Internal Revenue Service plans to give people...

The Obama administration said Tuesday it will herd uninsured Americans into Obamacare plans this fall by targeting young adults and working with the IRS to root out people who paid a penalty for lacking coverage last year. Officials said people who were fined under the Affordable Care Act’s individual mandate can expect to receive a paper notice that explains their coverage options on the law’s web-based exchanges. The state of Massachusetts is already working with its revenue agency to locate the uninsured, and the Obama administration said those efforts appeared to be working. The Health and Human Services Department said...

2011, while working as a college English instructor and writing articles for this and other sites about corruption in education, I set up a website called Dissident Prof with my own funds and by working in my basement. After one of my long-time readers sent an unsolicited $500 donation, I decided to apply for 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status. Thus began the ordeal with the IRS. I suffered through fifteen months of stonewalling followed by demands to quickly meet a financial and ideological inquisition. I am now a plaintiff in a class action lawsuit against the IRS, because we now know the...

Wall Street Journal op-ed: Why Does the IRS Need Guns?, by Tom Coburn (former U.S. Senator) & Adam Andrzejewski (Founder, OpenTheBooks.com): Special agents at the IRS equipped with AR-15 military-style rifles? Health and Human Services “Special Office of Inspector General Agents” being trained by the Army’s Special Forces contractors? The Department of Veterans Affairs arming 3,700 employees? The number of non-Defense Department federal officers authorized to make arrests and carry firearms (200,000) now exceeds the number of U.S. Marines (182,000). In its escalating arms and ammo stockpiling, this federal arms race is unlike anything in history. Over the last 20...

At a Fort Pierce home owned by members of the Mateen family, Seddique Mateen — father of the Orlando massacre shooter Omar Mateen — said Omar's wife Noor Salman is "no longer here" and that she was no longer in the area. He would not say where she had gone.

Mohammed Weiss Rasool was an Afghani who immigrated to the United States and got a job as a police officer. And then he did what you would expect him to do. Weiss Russell (he has changed his name from “Weiss Rasool,” the name under which he was convicted), is currently employed as a Financial Management Analyst in the IRS Deputy Chief Financial Officer’s office. In 2008, Russell/Rasool was prosecuted for his role in tipping off Abdullah Alnoshan, a close associate of al-Qaeda cleric Anwar al-Awlaki and a friend of Russell’s from their mosque. According to the Justice Department’s Statement of...

The IRS’s computer hack was worse than previously admitted, and the tax agency failed to alert thousands of people that their information was stolen, and didn’t give credit monitoring assistance to nearly 80,000 others who were targeted, an inspector general said Wednesday. The Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration says nearly 1 million accounts were potentially targeted, and nearly 360,000 people actually had their accounts broken into. That’s far more than the 220,000 hacks the tax agency initially acknowledged. In thousands of instances, the IRS missed the signs of a hack, the inspector general said. “While the IRS acted swiftly...

From the IRS link above: "The filing deadline to submit 2015 tax returns is Monday, April 18, 2016, rather than the traditional April 15 date. Washington, D.C., will celebrate Emancipation Day on that Friday, which pushes the deadline to the following Monday for most of the nation. (Due to Patriots Day, the deadline will be Tuesday, April 19, in Maine and Massachusetts.)"

Full Title:FLASHBACK: Obama Said “Not a Smidgen of Corruption” in IRS Scandal – Now We Know Over 400 Conservative Groups TargetedRemember this? In February 2014 Barack Obama told Bill O’Reilly that there was “not even a smidgen of corruption” in the IRS scandal.This weekend the IRS finally admitted it targeted over 400 conservative groups for intrusive scrutiny. The Washington Times reported:The government released names of 426 organizations. Another 40 were not released as part of the list because they had already opted out of being part of the class-action suit. That total is much higher than the 298 groups the...

More than three years after it admitted to targeting tea party groups for intrusive scrutiny, the IRS has finally released a near-complete list of the organizations it snagged in a political dragnet. The tax agency filed the list last month as part of a court case after a series of federal judges, fed up with what they said was the agency’s stonewalling, ordered it to get a move on. The case is a class-action lawsuit, so the list of names is critical to knowing the scope of those who would have a claim against the IRS. But even as it...

Three recent stories regarding three government agencies — the IRS, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), and the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) — show why we should oppose big government for practical, as well as philosophical, reasons. In recent months, many Americans have missed their flights because of longer-than-usual TSA security lines. In typical DC fashion, the TSA claims the delays are because of budget cuts, even though Congress regularly increases the TSA’s funding! The TSA is also blaming the delays on the fact that few Americans have signed up for its “PreCheck” program. Under PreCheck, the TSA considers excusing...