Free Republic

The Bureau of Land Management doesn’t need its own heavily armed police force, Rep. Chris Stewart said Tuesday, referencing the recent standoff between federal agents and a civilian militia siding with Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy. Stewart, a member of the House Appropriations Committee, says he’s going to try and cut funding for any "paramilitary units" and require the BLM, Internal Revenue Service and other regulatory agencies to rely on local law enforcement rather than their own armed crews. "There are lots of people who are really concerned when the BLM shows up with its own SWAT team," the Utah Republican...

Long Beach Police officers had an "obstructed view" when they opened fire on a man who was allegedly running from a standoff Sunday, according to a press release issued Monday. "Long Beach officers, who were located on the beach, east of the foot of the stairs with an obstructed view due to palm trees and shrubbery, heard gunshots from above and saw the suspect running toward the populated beach area," the press release stated. "The suspect failed to surrender and after officers observed him reaching or his waist band, an officer involved shooting occurred."

Federal law enforcement officials are investigating threats made against Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid in the aftermath of his sharp-edged attacks against Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy, sources said Monday. Reid has not minced words about Bundy’s battle with the Bureau of Land Management, referring to Bundy’s supporters as “domestic terrorists” and the rancher himself as a “hateful racist.” As he’s stepped up his criticism, Reid has been the subject of threats himself, prompting an increase in his own security detail in recent days, people familiar with the matter said Monday. Shennell Antrobus, a spokesman for the U.S. Capitol Police, declined...

Jerrod Dooley Candy, the dog RAINS COUNTY, TX (KLTV) - A former Rains County deputy retained a Dallas attorney on Friday. Jerrod Dooley was fired by Rains County on Thursday after he shot a dog while responding to a burglary call on April 18."[The] dog shooting in Rains County this week [was] an unfortunate situation," said Peter Schulte, Dooley's attorney. "Deputy Dooley retained me today to share his side... I ask that everyone keep an open mind about the Rains County incident. It's a horrible situation but I do believe the shooting is justified." Rains County Sheriff David Traylor...

MOSCOW (AP) — President Vladimir Putin on Thursday called the Internet a CIA project and made comments about Russia's biggest search engine Yandex, sending the company's shares plummeting. The Kremlin has been anxious to exert greater control over the Internet, which opposition activists — barred from national television — have used to promote their ideas and organize protests.

DeKalb County Police say they were caught off-guard Sunday by the unsanctioned party at a public park that ended with two women being shot. “This came really as a surprise to us,” the county’s public safety chief Cedric Alexander told reporters on Monday. But Alexander vowed that they would be prepared in the future. “We’re going to monitor social media going forward so that we can try to get ahead of them as quickly as we can and intervene and try to make sure those illegal crowds do not converge upon a crowd and become a threat to anyone,” he...

Does the Environmental Protection Agency really need armed agents? Outside of law enforcement, federal agencies now employ over 25,000 people as armed agents. They are more than guards. They’ve become like private armies that can push around private citizens. Over 70 non-military federal agencies now have their own armed agents. You expect armed agents with the FBI, the U.S. Marshal Service and the Border Patrol. But the EPA? The Fish & Wildlife Service, Bureau of Land Management, even the Social Security Administration and the National Institutes of Health? Even the Department of Education and the Department of Housing and Urban...

~On the other hand, tea-wise, the Johnson County Sheriff's Department is taking it to a whole other level. Two years ago, at 7.30 one April morning, a sleepy Bob Harte staggered to the front door of his home in Leawood, Kansas to answer a knock and found a fully-armed SWAT team outside preparing to use the battering ram. They shoved him to the floor, surrounded him with pointing rifles, and the whole rigmarole began... On the other hand, at least the Hartes and their kids are still alive. I've written often about the increasing tendency of American cops to police...

After the federal Bureau of Land Management agents backed down from their intimidating stance at the Bundy Ranch last weekend, ample evidence has surfaced indicating the standoff between the government and the Nevada ranching family is far from over. Throughout the weeklong stalemate, members of the Bundy family were physically assaulted by armed officers, numerous cows were shot dead, and protesters faced threats of gunfire for merely expressing their outrage. Immediately after what many considered a victory against a tyrannical federal agency, a number of leftist voices – most notably, Sen. Harry Reid – indicated the action against this family...

On Wednesday Tracy and Mary Finney of Marietta, Georgia were met by a police officer outside their children’s public school and informed they were trespassing on school property because they opposed the school’s process of testing all children. The Finneys, whose children attend West Side Elementary School, had decided to opt their children out of Georgia’s state test, the CRCT. ~~~snip~~~~ Meg Norris, an organizer of United Opt-Out Georgia, told Breitbart News she is “shocked” at how the mandates to test children are being enforced in Georgia. “It’s happening in schools all over Georgia,” Norris said. “Even children who are...

RORY REID, SON OF SEN. HARRY REID:We believe in a country in which we are subject to laws and you can’t just ignore the laws we don’t like. I think clearly if state and local prosecutors look at this more closely, they’re going to find that he broke the law and he should be prosecuted.

I was deejaying at a restaurant when Judith came to meet me for the first time. We were finally able to put faces to the voices we had been hearing on the radio, and I asked her out on our first date. She met me at the radio station and we drove to IHOP, where we laughed and talked all night. I loved everything about her, but especially her smile. I knew at that point that I didn’t want any other woman; she was it for me. We dated for a while and then I moved in with her. We...

The Missouri Department of Corrections discovered, upon preparing to release a prisoner who had served a 13-year sentence in July 2013, that the prisoner had never been incarcerated and promptly sent him to prison. In the intervening 13 years since his 1999 arrest, Cornealious 'Mike' Anderson III, 36, has transformed his life, becoming a master carpenter, starting his own business and marrying and having children. In July last year, as he and his youngest daughter slept in the St Louis home he built for his family, a SWAT team outfitted in tactical gear and helmets swarmed the house, arresting the...

Armed federal agents deployed last week to northeast Clark County, Nev., for what can only be described as a major escalation in a decades-long standoff between a local cattle rancher and the U.S. government. .Cliven Bundy, the last remaining rancher in the southern Nevada county, stands in defiance of a 2013 court order demanding that he remove his cattle from public land managed by the U.S. Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Land Management. The 67-year-old veteran rancher, who has compared the situation to similar confrontations with government officials in Ruby Ridge and Waco, Texas, told TheBlaze that his family...

LAS VEGAS -- The son of a rural Nevada cattle rancher has been freed from federal custody, a day after his arrest by agents working to remove cattle from disputed grazing areas northeast of Las Vegas. A U.S. attorney's office spokeswoman in Las Vegas said Monday that 37-year-old Dave Bundy is accused of refusing to disperse and resisting officers.Bundy's mother, Carol Bundy, says U.S. Bureau of Land Management agents arrested her son Sunday in a parked car on State Route 170 near Bunkerville. Pictures obtained by the 8 News NOW I-Team show where David Bundy had parked his car to take...

Residents of Saginaw County, Mich. could soon find themselves confronted by a behemoth best suited for the war-torn streets of Afghanistan. According to Sheriff William Federspiel, his department recently obtained a Mine Resistant Ambush Proof (MRAP) vehicle straight from the U.S. Army.

The proliferation of federal agencies with armed agents is one of the most worrisome aspects of the growth in government. Just last summer the EPA carried out an armed raid on a mine in Alaska to enforce the Clean Water Act — a bit of government intimidation that residents say was totally unnecessary:

Thousands Of Artifacts Seized At 91-Year-Old Indiana Man's Home Federal agents, art experts and museum curators descended on the home of a 91-year-old man in central Indiana on Wednesday to take control of a huge collection of artifacts from Native American, Russian, Chinese and other cultures. FBI Special Agent Robert Jones told reporters that the collection's cultural value "is immeasurable," reports RTV6 The Indy Channel.

RUSH COUNTY, Ind. - The FBI says a 91-year-old Indiana man who collected thousands of archeological artifacts over his lifetime may have acquired some of them improperly. At a news conference Wednesday, the FBI could not say if Donald Miller would face charges for his collection in Waldron. Dozens of agents were at Miller's farm to collect and process the artifacts. It happened in Waldron, a classic, quiet, one-stoplight Indiana town (snip) Several people in Waldron said the house was like a museum, that school groups and Scout troops would go on regular tours. The FBI has around 100 agents...

100 agents make a man prove that he obtained his collection properly.WALDRON, IN — Around 100 FBI agents swarmed an elderly man’s house in rural Indiana.  The Federal government has set up a command post with trucks and military-style tents.  The feds showed up to sort through his lifetime collection of world artifacts that he had gathered over the course of his 91 years.   The agents claim they want to make sure he “acquired the items properly” — effectively making him prove his innocence — even though the man has not been accused of breaking any laws. Don Miller,...