Free Republic

Despite the best efforts of some to sound the alarm, the nation is being locked down into a militarized, mechanized, hypersensitive, legalistic, self-righteous, goose-stepping antithesis of every principle upon which this nation was founded.All the while, the nation’s citizens seem content to buy into a carefully constructed, benevolent vision of life in America that bears little resemblance to the gritty reality that plagues those unfortunate enough to not belong to the rarefied elite.For those whose minds have been short-circuited into believing the candy-coated propaganda peddled by the politicians, here is an A-to-Z, back-to-the-basics primer of what life in the United...

The Third Amendment was created to protect your home from being quartered by soldiers without your consent. It has very rarely been a matter of debate or litigation, until now. Federal district court Judge Andrew Gordon recently ruled that the police are exempt from the 3rd Amendment with a case out of Henderson, Nevada after a family had their home broken into and seized by local law enforcement who stated they needed the home to gain a “tactical advantage” against suspected criminals in a neighboring house. Police actually forced their way into this family’s home, pepperballed the father and his...

Oregon launches program to tax drivers per mile Never autoplay videos David Hastings is a rare American. This long-time hybrid car owner from Oregon wants to pay higher taxes for roads and bridges and says the current 30 cents per gallon state gas tax barely affects him. "I've been free-loading on the highways for 20 years driving electric cars or hybrid cars, getting at least 40 miles to the gallon. So I haven't been paying my share," Hastings said. Now, Hastings will pay more thanks to OReGO -- the first pay-by-the-mile program in the U.S. Oregon’s Department of Transportation has...

Laws have become too vague and the concept of intent has disappeared. When we think about the pace of change in technology, it's usually to marvel at how computing power has become cheaper and faster or how many new digital ways we have to communicate. Unfortunately, this pace of change is increasingly clashing with some of the slower-moving parts of our culture. Technology moves so quickly we can barely keep up, and our legal system moves so slowly it can't keep up with itself. By design, the law is built up over time by court decisions, statutes and regulations. Sometimes...

The city council in Jacksonville, Florida, has taken up a proposal that, if approved, would make it illegal for residents to park their cars in any manner that prevents law enforcement from seeing their rear license plates from the street. For those who live in single-family homes with off-street parking, such a law would make backing into the driveway to park an illegal act. Florida is among a handful of states that don’t require car owners to display license plates at the front of their cars. The proposed local bill would also require people who use car covers to figure...

U.S. Customs and Border Patrol agents who detained conservative filmmaker James O’Keefe at the airport specifically asked him about the work he’s done investigating the “federal government.”O’Keefe was detained by U.S. customs agents Monday after arriving at the airport in Nassau, Bahamas en route to Miami. Agents told O’Keefe that he was being detained for crossing back and forth across the U.S.-Mexico border while dressed as Osama bin Laden in a video that was published by The Daily Caller. Agents marked his passport with an “X” and explained that he would be detained every time he enters U.S. territory henceforth....

“Free worlders” is prison slang for those who are not incarcerated behind prison walls. Supposedly, those fortunate souls live in the “free world.” However, appearances can be deceiving. “As I got closer to retiring from the Federal Bureau of Prisons,” writes former prison employee Marlon Brock, “it began to dawn on me that the security practices we used in the prison system were being implemented outside those walls.” In fact, if Brock is right, then we “free worlders” do live in a prison—albeit, one without visible walls. In federal prisons, cameras are everywhere in order to maintain “security” and keep...

The United States Department of Justice is using federal grand jury subpoenas to identify anonymous commenters engaged in typical internet bluster and hyperbole in connection with the Silk Road prosecution. DOJ is targeting Reason.com, a leading libertarian website whose clever writing is eclipsed only by the blowhard stupidity of its commenting peanut gallery. Why are the government using its vast power to identify these obnoxious asshats, and not the other tens of thousands who plague the internet? Because these twerps mouthed off about a judge. Last week, a source provided me with a federal grand jury subpoena. The subpoena1, issued...

link only: http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/kalief-browder-1993-2015

WASHINGTON — In a remarkable reversal of national security policy formed after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the Senate voted on Tuesday to curtail the federal government’s sweeping surveillance of American phone records, sending the legislation to President Obama’s desk for his signature. The passage of the measure, achieved after a vigorous debate on the Senate floor, will lead to the reinstatement of government surveillance efforts that were blacked out on Monday after Senator Rand Paul, Republican of Kentucky, blocked their extension. The vote was a rebuke to Senator Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky and the majority leader, as...

The McLennan County Re-Education Camp Neither the United States Department of Justice, the American Civil Liberties Union of Texas, the Governor of Texas, the President of the United States nor any of the score of smurfs and fools currently running for President has so far dared to come to the defense of the scores of men and at least two women who remain unjustly imprisoned under cruel and unusual circumstances in the McLennan County Jail. The Southern Nevada Confederation of Clubs has stated that the jail is desperately overcrowded, that some prisoners are not being fed and that others cannot...

The FBI is operating a small air force to spy on Americans Associated Press Jack Gillum, Eileen Sullivan and Eric Tucker, Associated Press Jun. 2, 2015, WASHINGTON (AP) — The FBI is operating a small air force with scores of low-flying planes across the country carrying video and, at times, cellphone surveillance technology — all hidden behind fictitious companies that are fronts for the government, The Associated Press has learned. The planes' surveillance equipment is generally used without a judge's approval, and the FBI said the flights are used for specific, ongoing investigations. In a recent 30-day period, the agency...

The Department of Justice is concentrating on “far-right” groups in a new study of social media usage aimed at combatting violent extremism. The Justice Department’s National Institute of Justice (NIJ) awarded Michigan State University $585,719 for the study, which was praised by Eric Holder, the former attorney general, earlier this year. “There is currently limited knowledge of the role of technology and computer mediated communications (CMCs), such as Facebook and Twitter, in the dissemination of messages that promote extremist agendas and radicalize individuals to violence,” according to the NIJ grant. “The proposed study will address this gap through a series...

Obama’s Department of Justice is working on “more than a dozen” new gun control regulations it plans to begin implementing apart from Congress. Some of the regulations are set to be put in place by November, others simply by the end of the Obama administration. According to The Hill, “the regulations range from new restrictions on high-powered pistols to gun storage requirements” and the issuance of “new rules expanding criteria for people who do not quality for gun ownership.” Part and parcel to this new “criteria” will be an ATF-implemented ban on gun ownership for anyone “convicted of a misdemeanor...

President Obama pressured the Senate on Saturday to immediately authorize the USA Freedom Act. “Today, I’m calling on Americans to join me in speaking with one voice to the Senate,” Obama said in his weekly address. “Put the politics aside,” he said. “Put our national security first. Pass the USA Freedom Act — now.”

“If we’re training cops as soldiers, giving them equipment like soldiers, dressing them up as soldiers, when are they going to pick up the mentality of soldiers? If you look at the police department, their creed is to protect and to serve. A soldier’s mission is to engage his enemy in close combat and kill him. Do we want police officers to have that mentality? Of course not.”— Arthur Rizer, former civilian police officer and member of the military Only now—after the Departments of Justice, Homeland Security (DHS) and Defense have passed off billions of dollars worth of military equipment...

Behind the orchestrated riots that were allowed to strike Baltimore in recent weeks, and Ferguson, Missouri, before that, lies an agenda that has nothing to do with the fact that “Black Lives Matter.” As the Obama administration and more than a few race-mongers allied with the White House have already made clear, the real goal involves further chipping away at local self-government and community control over police departments — and expanding federal control over local law enforcement in its place. In between fanning the division and unrest with racialist rhetoric, Obama is also exploiting the chaos he is helping to...

For close to 20 years now, I’ve been observing and reporting on a disturbing trend in law enforcement – the federalization and militarization of local police forces. Until recently, practically no one noticed what was happening. But with the focus on police shootings and the civil disturbances that have followed – sometimes involving tanks, military-style gear and Kevlar – it’s hard not to notice that local cops don’t exactly look like Officer Joe Bolton anymore. It was none other than Al Sharpton (I won’t call him reverend) who suggested recently that the answer to the use of excessive force by...

(You will hear and obey me) Baltimore will soon be the first national police force that Obama promised and Al Sharpton has been promoting. (I’m waiting for the IRS to announce they made a mistake and instead of owing taxes, Sharpton has a 20 million dollar refund coming) For a while it looked like Ferguson would hold this distinction after Eric “Fast and Furious” Holder announced that the police force there was racist, but they weren’t willing to roll over. Obama will force it on them eventually, but Baltimore will be the first. The mayor of Baltimore, Stephanie Rawlings-Blake has...

California Attorney General Kamala Harris has gotten an extension to the Monday deadline her office faced for processing a proposed ballot initiative that advocates killing anyone who engages in gay sex. Harris asked a state court in late March for permission to reject the measure, calling it obviously unconstitutional.