Free Republic

Contrary to the White Houses explanation that a few rogue agents in Cincinnati lead the targeting of Tea Party groups by the IRS, newly released emails obtained by Judicial Watch detail Democratic Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI) pressuring the IRS to target conservative groups. On March 30, 2012 Levin wrote to then IRS commissioner Douglas Shulman about his concern with the political activity by conservative nonprofits. “Some entities claiming tax-exempt status as social welfare organizations under 26 U.S.C.&501(c)(4) appear to be engaged in political activities more appropriate for political organizations claiming tax-exempt status under 26 U.S.C.&527. Because of the urgency of...

Breitbart Texas recently reported on the release of 36,000 convicted criminal illegal immigrants, including almost 200 murderers, who were released back into the U.S. by immigration officials in 2013. The figures were outlined in a report by the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS). Breitbart Texas subsequently reached out to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) offices around the country, in an attempt to learn more about release policies. Each ICE representative that Breitbart Texas came in contact with was familiar with the CIS report, but would not comment on it. They additionally refused to answer general questions regarding detention and release...

LAKEWOOD — A teenager was arrested and charged Tuesday night with bias crimes after he was reported luring or harassing females on the street, police said. Police say the teenager intended to touch and knock down a woman from the Orthodox Jewish community as part of an MS-13 gang initiation. Rafael Laurano-Flores, 18, was charged with obstruction, resisting arrest, three counts of bias intimidation and three counts of bias harassment, said Sgt. Greg Staffordsmith. Police were called initially at 7:30 p.m. to the area of 5th Street and Princeton Avenue about an attempted abduction of a 16-year-old girl, Staffordsmith said....

Another controversy has erupted over a Sellwood-Moreland business, this one over the owner’s views on gays and same-sex marriage. Facebook and other social media sites have exploded over a soon-to-open fresh meat and vegetable store called Moreland Farmers Pantry. Neighbors and nearby business owners, once excited by the prospect of the new shop, are now backing away. “They’re choosing to open a business in a very open-minded neighborhood,” said Tom Brown, owner of Brown Properties and president of the Sellwood Moreland Business Alliance. “I think their personal views are going to hurt.”

In other words, stop thinking of the Democratic Party as merely a political party, because it’s much more than that. We’re not just the party of slavery, segregation, secularism, and sedition. Not just the party of Aaron Burr, Boss Tweed, Richard J. Croker, Bull Connor, Chris Dodd, Richard Daley, Bill Ayers, the Reverend Jeremiah Wright, and Emperor Barack Hussein Obama II. Not just the party of Kendall “Agent 202” Myers, the State Department official recruited as a Cuban spy along with his wife during the Carter administration. Rather, think of the Democratic Party as what it really is: a criminal...

A "goon-squad" group named The Helpful Union Guys (THUG), members of Ironworkers Local 401 set fires, started riots, and took crowbars to the competition in an effort to protect union jobs. THUGs stalked women, took baseball bats to a Toys R Us site, and even torched a Quaker meetinghouse that dared to use non-union labor. Philly.Com reports 10 leaders of Ironworkers Local 401 charged in racketeering indictment. They called themselves "the Helpful Union Guys" - "THUGS" for short - and woe awaited any contractor who dared cross them by hiring non-organized workers. For, federal authorities alleged Tuesday, this "goon squad"...

The Council on American Islamic Relations, CAIR, claims to be an anti-defamation organization. In fact, as we shall see, it is anything but. CAIR was founded in 1994 by Nihad Awad and Omar Ahmed, who had ties with the Islamic Association for Palestine (IAP), which was established by the terrorist organization Hamas. Therefore, it is an outgrowth of the IAP. It opened its first office in Washington, D.C. with a donation from the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development, the largest Islamic charity in the U.S. CAIR should be, but is not, registered as a foreign agent. Only 1%...

The Obama administration’s Treasury Department and former IRS official Lois Lerner conspired to draft new 501(c)(4) regulations to restrict the activity of conservative groups in a way that would not be disclosed publicly, according to the House Committee on Ways and Means. The Treasury Department and Lerner started devising the new rules “off-plan,” meaning that their plans would not be published on the public schedule. They planned the new rules in 2012, while the IRS targeting of conservative groups was in full swing, and not after the scandal broke in order to clarify regulations as the administration has suggested. The...

Rep. Steve Stockman (R-Texas) said Tuesday night that he left President Obama's State of the Union speech early after "hearing how the President is further abusing his Constitutional powers." "I could not bear to watch as he continued to cross the clearly-defined boundaries of the Constitutional separation of powers," Stockman said in a release shortly after Obama's speech ended. "Needless to say, I am deeply disappointed in the tone and content of tonight's address." Stockman said he was reacting to Obama's promise to "break his oath of office and begin enacting his own brand of law through executive decree." "This...

Bank of America has agreed to pay Freddie Mac $404 million in a mortgage settlement over 716,000 loans, many purchased from Countrywide. This is one of many lawsuits by the Federal government over Countrywide and related mortgages. One wonders when the litigation will end. Here is the thing. These suits are largely about representations and warranties between the loan seller and the loan purchaser concerning underwriting standards. The reps and warranties provide relief to the loan purchaser if the underwriting of the loans by the loan seller proves to be misleading or false. But there is another issue called causality....

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius testifies before the Senate Finance Committee on the federal insurance exchange website and other issues related to the Affordable Care Act. Her testimony comes exactly one week after she appeared before the House Energy and Commerce Committee where she apologized to the public for what she called the "debacle." Secretary Sebelius and other administration officials have said that problems with the healthcare.gov website will be fixed by the end of this month. During her testimony today, she talks about the progress being made in that effort. Sen. Max Baucus (D-MT) chairs the committee...

Redskins Boycott: 76 Media Outlets and Journalists Oppose Name of Washington NFL Team By Sara Morrison San Francisco Chronicle, Slate, Rachel Maddow, Peter King and Bill Simmons among those boycotting the name, according to new study At least 76 media outlets and journalists are boycotting the name of Washington D.C.-based football team considered by many to be a racial slur, according to a Pew study released on Wednesday. Rachel Maddow, Peter King and Bill Simmons were among the 12 journalists who have publicly announced a boycott of the name, while 12 media outlets, including the San Francisco Chronicle, Slate and...

The head of the agency responsible for overseeing the troubled HealthCare.gov repeatedly refused to disclose how many people have enrolled in ObamaCare -- during a hearing where she did not deny that officials have that information. Marilyn Tavenner, head of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, testified Tuesday before the House Ways and Means Committee. At the top of the hearing, she apologized for the failures of the main ObamaCare website and vowed to fix them. But, raising more questions about the administration's transparency on the project, she declined to cite enrollment numbers. She did not claim, as Health...

President Barack Obama--who oversees both the Department of Justice and the Department of Homeland Security--said in a speech at the White House on Thursday that it does not make sense to have 11 million people in the United States “illegally.” The president said these people need an “incentive” to stay here in the United States and become what he called “legalized citizens.” “It doesn’t make sense to have 11 million people who are in this country illegally without any incentive or any way for them to come out of the shadows, get right with the law, meet their responsibilities and...

President Obama in his weekly address Saturday said he was proud to be a “salesman” for Obamacare despite criticism over the glitch-filled rollout of the law’s insurance exchanges.“Some people have poked fun at me this week for sounding like an insurance salesman. And that’s okay,” said Obama. “I’d still be out there championing this law even if the website were perfect.”Obama’s comments came after another week of withering criticism over the administration’s rollout of a new website designed to enroll consumers in the health care law’s public insurance exchanges.Obama said at an event Monday that he is frustrated with the...

Above: Maria Marroquin: Illegal alien...and ObamaCare "Navigator"- by John HillStand With ArizonaAmericans were outraged after the Obama Administration denied access to the WWII memorial for veterans  - but allowed illegal aliens to hold a rally for amnesty on the "closed" National Mall. Americans were also angered last week after the Healthcare.gov ObamaCare website, which cost $634 million to build (half a billion dollars over budget), utterly failed to work. Now it has emerged that an illegal alien in New York is serving as an Obamacare navigator, according to the Center for Immigration Studies. According to the CIS report, Maria Marroquin — identified as an illegal...

I’ve always paid my taxes and have never been arrested or charged with any crime in my life. I am a successful small-business man. But in January of this year, I woke up to find that my business’ entire bank account — more than $35,000 — had been wrongly seized. Later that same day, I was writing checks to my vendors. A federal agent strolls in. She tells me my hard-earned cash was taken by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). I was shocked. I’ve broken no law, committed no crime and was never warned my store could be in trouble....

On Sept. 6, Ezequiel Padilla-Villalobos, 24, pleaded guilty to the kidnapping and murder of 14-year-old Gabriela Acosta in Commerce City. The illegal alien had been dating the girl's sister. On Dec. 23, 2012, Padilla-Villalobos was drinking at a bar when his girlfriend called and asked him to pick up her younger sister in Broomfield, according to police. ABC 7 News reported: “Commerce City police wrote that he told them he started having "bad thoughts" about killing the teenager as he drove her to a family member's home. Padilla-Villalobos pulled over at a horse farm at 8690 Verbena St., where he'd...

A recent audit report by the inspector general for the Social Security Administration found that Obama’s IRS was reluctant to penalize any employers who consistently used Social Security numbers that did not match the names. Thus refusing any efforts to stop identity fraud from ”unauthorized noncitizens” using Social Security numbers that in 80% of the cases belonged to legal citizens. Defund the IRS. Flashback video reports here and here: (VIDEO-AT-LINK)CNSNews.com reports the following: An audit report published this month by the inspector general for the Social Security Administration says that the Internal Revenue Service’s reluctance to penalize employers who consistently...

In recent months, President Obama and his subordinates have waived or delayed a number of Obamacare’s notable features, such as the law’s employer mandate, and its procedures for protecting taxpayers from fraud and identity theft. Earlier this month, in that context, I obtained a heretofore-unpublished memorandum from the Congressional Research Service. The CRS, Congress’ non-partisan in-house think tank, compiled 82 deadlines that the Affordable Care Act mandates upon the first three years of its own implementation. Remarkably, it turns out that the White House has missed half of the deadlines legally required by the ACA. And some of those deadlines...