Free Republic

Justice Department lawyer Bradley Heard was in court today trying to stop Kansas from ensuring that only citizens register to vote. Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, relying on a United States Supreme Court opinion of last year, asked the federal Election Assistance Commission to permit him to ensure that only noncitizens were registering to vote. The Election Assistance Commission said no, so Kris Kobach went to federal court. Enter Eric Holder’s Justice Department, as usual, opposing election integrity measures. Despite harping about resource concerns (which apparently means that the DOJ can do nothing about corrupted voter rolls), Holder found...

Former U.S. Army 1st Lt. Michael Behenna has won parole and will be released from Fort Leavenworth on March 14, his mother, Vicki Behenna, said Wednesday. Behenna, who was convicted of unpremeditated murder in a combat zone, learned early Wednesday morning and called his parents in Edmond, where he will return next month. “We go between tears and laughing,” Vicki Behenna told The Oklahoman. “I’m just so thankful. I’m just so very very thankful. It’s wonderful.”

BAGHDAD — A group of Sunni militants attending a suicide bombing training class at a camp north of Baghdad were killed on Monday when their commander unwittingly conducted a demonstration with a belt that was packed with explosives, army and police officials said. The militants belonged to a group known as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, or ISIS, which is fighting the Shiite-dominated army of the Iraqi government, mostly in Anbar Province. But they are also linked to bomb attacks elsewhere and other fighting that has thrown Iraq deeper into sectarian violence. Twenty-two ISIS members were killed, and...

Finding a good essay for high school freshmen.

Murderer first to be executed with controversial 'air hunger' drug after last meal of beef, ice cream and chicken (rest of title) 'One can scarcely conceive of a sequence of crimes more shocking to the conscience or to moral sensibilities than the senseless kidnapping and rape of a young, pregnant woman followed by her murder,

The Washington Examiner is calling for a special prosecutor in the IRS targeting scandal, saying it's the only way to get to the bottom of what went on. House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa points to tone deafness to explain the choice of an Obama donor to run the Justice Department's "investigation" of IRS targeting of conservative, Tea Party and evangelical political groups during the 2010 and 2012 campaigns. But the California Republican is being entirely too diplomatic. Putting a donor in charge is more like flipping the bird to Obama's critics.When the IRS harassment abuse...

"Amanda Knox has reportedly told an Italian newspaper that if she is again convicted of murder, she will become a fugitive rather than return to an Italian prison."

I have chosen a provocative title for this article because nearing his fourth decade in prison for a crime all others similarly charged see freedom within four years, Jonathan Pollard is no more likely to be freed under Barak Obama than under George W. Bush before him or Bill Clinton before him. From today it seems no exaggeration that, barring a miracle, a young and idealistic American Jew who chose to spy for Israel will be forced to pay the ultimate price for his decision. Jonathan Pollard had serious medical conditions at the time of his arrest in his twenties....

Gov. Rick Scott signed a death warrant Thursday for the man who kidnapped, raped and murdered 9-year-old Jimmy Ryce on his way home from school almost 20 years ago. Juan Carlos Chavez, 46, is scheduled to die by lethal injection Feb. 12 for the Sept. 11, 1995 murder in a rural area in Miami-Dade County.

As the nation learns more about the National Security Agency’s eavesdropping program, such as recent revelations that the NSA most likely tapped into the communications of Google and Yahoo users, not through cooperation with the companies themselves, but via collusion with the companies’ Internet backbone providers, questions on how the federal government approached its surveillance are increasingly becoming more difficult to answer. One such question — if the Justice Department knowingly lied to the Supreme Court regarding the NSA’s procedures about the notification of targets — presents a potential minefield for the Obama administration. In the 2012 Clapper v. Amnesty...

"........If ACA navigators on occasion have urged poor applicants to fudge on their eligibility, what is the big deal? Are those really lies—given that the system that reduced some Americans to poverty and the status of the uninsured is one big lie to begin with? When “regulations” are enforced about voter IDs, Obamaphones, or eligibility for disability insurance and food stamps, poor people suffer;when they are ignored,the real truth emerges and a higher justice is served...... Again,how could the president be accused of lying when he was helping the uninformed to be released from their “crap” coverage in order to...

Family members of the two masked men shot to death after allegedly robbing a store in Reading spoke out Tuesday. "It's not fair," said Virginia Medina, mother of 24-year-old William Medina, who police said robbed Krick's Korner store alongside 18-year-old Robert De Carr on Monday. The two men were shot and killed by a private citizen while leaving the store, and family members want to see charges pressed. "[William] had no right to lose his life over something that man could have called the police for," said Medina. "He took the law into his own hands and walked away scot-free."...

Republican lawmakers want to know why the Al Qaeda terrorists involved in the Benghazi attacks were excluded from the State Department’s Rewards for Justice program, a program which offers huge cash payments for tips leading to the capture of wanted terrorists. Fox News reported that a ranking Republican lawmaker believes this is "more evidence that the Obama White House wants to minimize the terrorism angle in that attack." In a related post on Thursday, I noted that Thomas Joscelyn of The Long War Journal reported that: The UN, on Oct. 18, added Muhammad Jamal al Kashef - who previously served...

Anthony Harris of Prichard made a series of poor choices on Friday. He decided to steal a purse. Then, he decided to steal the purse of Bridgett Bolen of Hurley, Miss. Bolen quickly confronted the would-be thief with a kick to the groin and a punch to the face, leaving Harris sitting in Mobile Metro Jail with stitches under his left eye.

Vid at link

LANSING, Mich., Oct. 7 (UPI) -- A proposed law in Michigan is aimed at ensuring beer drinkers who pay for a pint get at least 16 ounces. The measure was introduced in the House last week, MLive.com reported. It would ban what barflies refer to as "cheater glasses" with thick bottoms so they look like they hold a pint but actually take a few ounces less. State Rep. Jim Irwin, a Democrat from the college town of Ann Arbor, said the state regulates meat and other foodstuffs to make sure buyers get what they pay for. Irwin introduced a similar...

According to Kate Berry at American Banker, “The nation’s four largest banks are holding $57 billion of seriously delinquent loans that they’ve been slow to move into foreclosure over concerns that the Federal Housing Administration, the government mortgage insurer, will refuse to cover the losses and hit them with damages, according to industry sources.” The FHA insures home loans issued by banks and other mortgage lenders to low-income and first-time home buyers. Those buyers pay the FHA insurance premiums to cover potential losses. In the event that an FHA-backed loan goes into foreclosure, the lender has the right to file...

The last time we checked in on Operation Fast and Furious, the bloody and not-”botched” gunrunning scandal in which the ATF pressed American gun dealers into funneling at least 2,000 weapons to cartels across the Mexican border with no serious efforts to trace them, more of the trafficked weapons were still showing up at crime scenes as recently as this past August. Since President Obama asserted his executive privilege over Congress’s subpoenas for the Fast & Furious documents that the Department of Justice has patently refused to hand over (despite their ongoing insistence in no deliberate wrongdoing) and Congress subsequently...

Being a far right-wing person I have always been very pro law & order and believe that those who violate our laws should pay the consequences. More often than not I have found myself thinking that our criminal justice system is not harsh enough. But, it is the system we have and I would not trade it for any other in the world. One of the cornerstones of our system is supposed to be the impartiality of the justice that is dispensed. Without impartiality, can the punishments meted out still be considered just? Sometimes, no.The impartiality of the justice system...

An Ohio man is standing outside this week wearing a sign around his neck that declares he is an idiot. Richard Dameron, a 58-year-old from Cleveland, stood with his arms crossed outside the local police station in Sky News footage, a yellow sign with block lettering stating his apology. "I apologize to officer Simone & all police officers for being an idiot calling 911 threatening to kill you. I'm sorry and it will never happen again," the sign says. Dameron was convicted of calling 911 and threatening police, and then missing a court appearance, according to WKYC. His unusual sentence...