Free Republic

Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson on Wednesday ordered the cancellation of a plan by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency to develop a national license-plate tracking system after privacy advocates raised concern about the initiative. The order came just days after ICE solicited proposals from companies to compile a database of license-plate information from commercial and law enforcement tag readers. Officials said the database was intended to help apprehend fugitive illegal immigrants, but the plan raised concerns that the movements of ordinary citizens under no criminal suspicion could be scrutinized.

Over the past 2 decades, Republican and Democrat Administrations have joined forces to require the use by physicians and hospitals of government-certified, interoperable electronic medical records systems, or EMRs. These online record keeping systems will send personal patient information collected by all participating providers directly to the centralized Office of the National Coordinator of Health Information Technology, a newly created government agency whose job is making the medical records of the American people “inter-operable–” that is, instantly accessible to any “qualified” agency or agent. For example, if the patient of a New Jersey physician should become the victim of a...

FEBRUARY 6, 2014 3:00 PM The IRS Secret Police? Proposed rules seek to curb the free speech of Obama’s political opponents. By L. Brent Bozell III The Internal Revenue Service was already an organization rightly looked on with scorn and fear by most Americans, heightened by the recent arrival of our W-2 forms. Since the early years of our country, when Chief Justice John Marshall in the Supreme Court’s landmark case McCulloch v. Maryland wrote that “the power to tax involves the power to destroy,” countless Americans have felt the heavy hand of the IRS.Then came Barack Obama. Today, the...

**SNIP** Eight months later, the probe has shown few public signs of progress, and many of the tea party victims say they still haven’t heard from the FBI or Justice Department lawyers. House Republicans said they were concerned about the direction of the probe, and Rep. Jim Jordan, Ohio Republican and a subcommittee chairman on the House oversight committee, asked Ms. Bosserman to testify at a hearing next week. The GOP has identified her as the lead lawyer on the investigation, and they have questioned her role, given her history as a significant political donor to President Obama’s 2008 and...

ANNAPOLIS, Md. — A transgender candidate has announced she will run against an openly gay state senator in Montgomery County in the Democratic primary. Dana Beyer, who is the executive director of Gender Rights Maryland, made the announcement Thursday. Beyer says Maryland residents have waited too long for economic fairness and equal opportunity. Beyer is running against Sen. Richard Madaleno, who has been in the state Senate since 2007. He served in the House of Delegates from 2003 to 2007. Madaleno has been an advocate for gay and transgender rights in Maryland

Sen. Ted Cruz on Wednesday pushed Attorney General Eric Holder for answers about the investigation into the IRS, with the Texas Republican saying he finds what has transpired in the last eight months of the probe “astonishing.” Cruz called on Holder, who was appearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee, to address why so little had been done since the inspector general report concluded that the IRS had improperly targeted conservative groups, tea party groups, pro-Israel groups and pro-life groups. “In the 280 days since that inspector general report, nobody has been indicted,” Cruz said. “Not a single person. In the...

Nothing makes us want to get drunk on a casual Tuesday night more than the annual State of the Union address, and nothing passes the time through an epically boring, 90-minute speech than a good, old-fashioned drinking game. Follow along with The Daily Caller’s 2014 SOTU drinking game during President Obama’s speech and you’re guaranteed to be drunker than John Boehner at an open bar.

The Obama administration’s testy relationship with the press is nothing new for Washington, but it’s now extended to Colorado and has touched off a firestorm after Interior Department officials booted local reporters from a public meeting earlier this week. Journalists with Colorado's Craig Daily Press and at least two other media outlets were barred from a Tuesday question-and-answer session with Interior Secretary Sally Jewell, despite the fact that members of the public were allowed to attend. “What happened would be in complete alignment with the administration’s policies. We were promised the most transparent administration ever and instead we’ve gotten the...

New York Times Executive Editor Jill Abramson says that President Obama's White House is the "most secretive White House" that she's covered during her long tenure as a political journalist. "I would say it is the most secretive White House that I have ever been involved in covering, and that includes — I spent 22 years of my career in Washington and covered presidents from President Reagan on up through now, and I was Washington bureau chief of the Times during George W. Bush's first term," Abramson told Al Jazeera America in an interview that will air on Sunday. "I...

Another reporter is joining the Obama administration. Emily Pierce, the deputy editor of Roll Call, will be joining the office of public affairs at the Department of Justice, the federal agency headed by Attorney General Eric Holder. Pierce was welcomed to her new position by Brian Fallon, who works in that DOJ office and who used to be Chuck Schumer's spokesman in the Senate. "Can't wait to welcome @emilyprollcall to @TheJusticeDept Office of Public Affairs later this month. She is a true pro," Fallon said on Twitter.

Last Friday, President Barack Obama delivered his long-awaited speech addressing recent revelations that the federal government, especially the National Security Agency (NSA), has been engaged in a massive program surveilling the communications of virtually every American who uses a cell phone or other internet-based device. Obama, who claims to head the most “transparent” presidency ever, spoke glowingly and eloquently how his Administration will move actively to rein in the domestic spying program and strike the proper balance with civil liberties; unfortunately, he did neither. On cue, of course, the Washington Post -- one of Obama’s most fervent enablers in the...

It's not easy to enforce discipline on successful, wealthy, and famous people used to having their own way. But the White House apparently did not want to see photos of the first lady's glittery gala circulating around the Internet. So it imposed a strict rule: No cellphones. "Guests were told not to bring cellphones with them, and there was a cellphone check-in area for those who did," reported the Chicago Tribune

The Obama administration plans to overhaul the nation’s security clearance system to prevent future intelligence leaks like the one by former defense contractor Edward Snowden. The changes, part of a package of reforms President Obama is expected to announce Friday during a speech at the Justice Department, will include more stringent — and more frequent  — vetting of security clearances, according to sources familiar with the administration’s plans.  The president is embracing some of the proposals offered by an advisory panel he appointed. The panel recommended security clearances become more highly differentiated and that a new clearance level be created...

Pelosi to Reporter: It’s Not Obamacare, It’s The Affordable Care Act BY: Washington Free Beacon Staff January 9, 2014 4:45 pm House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.) retorted to a reporter’s question about slipping support for Obamacare at her Thursday press conference that it was called the “Affordable Care Act.”Pelosi has referred to the law previously as Obamacare, although she also told Meet the Press host David Gregory she’d “always” called it the Affordable Care Act during a contentious November interview.Full exchange:Q: The three “Obamacare” bills on the floor tomorrow in the House, some Democrats have indicated they might...

<p>HONOLULU (AP) - On these sun-bathed shores, Barack Obama was born and spent his formative years, soaking in an island sensibility that his wife and friends say is indispensable to understanding who he is as president. Yet in the search for a home for his future presidential library, Hawaii has become the underdog, stuck in Chicago's perpetual shadow.</p>

The US Department of Justice on Thursday stepped into the cultural fray about the so-called “knockout game” when it brought federal hate crime charges against a white Texas man for assaulting an unsuspecting black man. The decision shines a brighter spotlight on the knockout game, in which an assailant tries to knock out a bystander with a single punch. A spate of incidents have gathered national attention in recent months, though it is unclear whether the game has become more popular or whether the Internet has simply allowed for isolated incidents to be broadcast more widely. The majority of the...

Judge dings admin for ‘cavalier attitude’ toward transparencyA federal judge Tuesday rejected the Obama administration’s sweeping claims of executive privilege and ordered the disclosure of a foreign aid directive signed by President Barack Obama in 2010 but never publicly released. U.S. District Court Judge Ellen Huvelle ruled the presidential order is not within the bounds of executive privilege and called the government’s arguments in favor of secrecy “troubling.” “The government appears to adopt the cavalier attitude that the President should be permitted to convey orders throughout the Executive Branch without public oversight … to engage in what is in effect...

The Justice Department asserted that the Presidential Policy Directive on Global Development was covered by executive privilege, even though it is unclassified and reflected standing guidance to agencies rather than advice given to the president. Acting on a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit brought by the Center for Effective Government, U.S. District Court Judge Ellen Huvelle concluded that the presidential order is not properly within the bounds of the so-called "presidential communications privilege." The judge went further, calling "troubling" the sweeping nature of the government's argument's in the case. Huvelle noted that she ordered the document delivered to her under...

On Wednesday, House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa sent a letter to Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius, angrily telling her that HHS’ attempts to block contractors from giving information to Congress on Obamacare was a violation of law. On December 6, HHS told Creative Computing Solutions, Inc. not to give information to the Oversight Committee, stating, “If you receive a request for this information from Congress, CMS will respond directly to the requestor[.]”

On Thursday night, MSNBC host Chris Matthews will sit down with President Barack Obama for an interview which will, in part, focus on the problematic roll-out of the Affordable Care Act. Matthews said that he intends to grill the president on this failure and contended that this incident was akin to “a brilliant writer” who, despite a “great theme,” turns in an essay full of technical flaws. “I’ll be talking about executive accountability and the strange way of this roll out, as it has occurred,” Matthews told MSNBC anchor Andrea Mitchell. “I think I would compare it, Andrea, to a