Free Republic

A Democratic senator sought Justice Department and IRS Criminal prosecutions of conservatives in 2013, newly-released federal documents reveal. The Department of Justice documents reveal email conversations between its officials and the staff of Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, a Rhode Island Democrat, about possible criminal prosecution of tea party groups for alleged violation of IRS rules, says Judicial Watch, a government watchdog which obtained the material. The conversations were in prepara (excerpt)

<p>A Facebook post featuring the many ways in which Oklahoma has fought back against President Barack Obama's tyrannical rulings went viral, and for good reason.</p> <p>The post perfectly captured the way in which Oklahoma legislators used their constitutionally guaranteed state power to crush the president's rulings on religion, illegal immigration and more.</p>

The Environmental Protection Agency has violated the personal privacy of tens of thousands of farmers and ranchers, according to a unanimous ruling issued by the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit. The ruling in American Farm Bureau Federation and National Pork Producers Council vs. EPA concerned the federal agency's 2013 release to three environmental groups of a vast compilation of spreadsheets containing personal information about farmers and ranchers who raise livestock and poultry in 29 states. The case also related to similar personal information from farmers and ranchers in seven additional states that had yet to be...

Washington (AFP) - Facebook, Twitter and news organizations including Agence France-Presse have joined a coalition of media and technology groups seeking to filter out online misinformation and improve news quality on social networks. First Draft News, which is backed by Google, announced Tuesday that some 20 news organizations will be part of its partner network to share information on best practices for journalism in the online age. Jenni Sargent, managing director of First Draft, said the partner network will help advance the organization's goal of improving news online and on social networks. ...

DEVELOPING: New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman has opened an investigation into the Donald J. Trump Foundation

The U.S. Military Academy is launching an inquiry into a prayer led by coaches following Army’s opening-day victory over Temple last week. Video of the post-game invocation was pulled offline on Monday after West Point officials received a complaint from the Military Religious Freedom Foundation. Mikey Weinstein, who heads the MRFF, said he received complaints from six members of the football team, two of whom he said identified as Christians, as well as dozens of Army graduates and staff who took exception to the religious expression.

As the October 1 deadline approaches for the us to turn over control of ICANN, the domain name non profit, to the international community, several congressional Republicans are vowing to fight the move because they say it's dangerous and premature. Politico: GOP lawmakers have long warned that the administration's plan to relinquish its authority over ICANN, the global nonprofit that manages the internet's domain name system, could give authoritarian countries like China and Russia an opening to make an online power grab. Now, as the actual date of the transition approaches — Oct. 1 — Republicans are looking at throwing...

On Wednesday, August 17, the Wyoming Supreme Court heard a case that has huge implications for each and every one of us. The case involves Judge Ruth Neely, who has served with distinction for twenty-one years as the municipal judge in Pinedale, Wyoming. Since municipalities have no authority either to issue a license or solemnize a marriage, you would think that she’s unaffected by all the hoopla over same-sex marriage. But you would be mistaken. Because of her beliefs about marriage, the Wyoming Commission on Judicial Conduct and Ethics (CJCE) wants to remove her from her job and disqualify her...

Tyrants throughout history have known that beheading their enemies and placing the heads on pikes at the gates of their capitals sends a powerful message to everyone else. Behave yourself as we dictate, and you may survive. Cross the king, and you are a dead man. Something very similar, but updated and taken to a vast financial level, happened to ITT Tech, the privately owned trade school/university. As the Wall Street Journal explains, it crossed the king (in this case, the Obama Department of Education): ITT Technical Institute folded on cue Tuesday after the Obama Administration issued a regulatory death...

Apple, Amazon, Google, Energy companies, and Airlines, and others back Microsoft in battle with government overreach. Link only due to copy right issues: Apple, Google Back Microsoft Over ‘Sneak-and-Peek’

Walker Percy and Flannery O’Connor agreed that “tenderness leads to the gas chambers,” and what they were trying to get through our thick heads is that tenderness without truth is tyranny. As Rodney Stark has pointed out in The Rise of Christianity, the Roman Empire was a harsh, unforgiving, cruel, and relentless society in which to live. Women were little better than possessions, children were considered undeveloped human beings. Slavery, violence, bloodshed, and revenge mingled with fire, famine, flood, pestilence, and plague. In the midst of the horror Christians rescued discarded babies, despised abortion, loved their spouses, tended the sick,...

Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey is investigating possible safety problems with guns manufactured by at least two companies. The Boston Globe reports that Remington Arms Co. and Glock Inc. have filed lawsuits to fight Healey’s efforts. […] Healey says Glock firearms are “prone to accidental discharge” and says in court papers she is concerned the company may have been warned about the problem and failed to act. …

The subject of this book is forgetfulness. By this I do not mean our tendency to misplace valuable objects, or our inability to recall the name of the boss’s dog, but the collective and cultural amnesia the over comes any group of human beings who have long benefited from the blessings of civilization – an amnesia first observed nearly eight hundred years ago by the Arab philosopher of history Ibn Khaldun, contemplating the rise and fall of those great feats of organized life that we call by such terms as societies, states and empires. Forgetfulness occurs when those who have...

The White House on Monday defended President Obama’s decision to enter into the Paris climate accord without Senate ratification but stopped short of confirming a Chinese report that he will do so this week during his trip to China. Still, it would surprise no one if Mr. Obama and Chinese President Xi Jinping were to announce the ratification of the sweeping climate change agreement before the Sunday opening of the Group of 20 summit in Hangzhou, Zhejiang. White House senior adviser Brian Deese said the president has the legal authority to ratify the accord without the two-thirds Senate vote required...

Two Polish Second World War heroes who fought the Germans but were killed later by the communists in Poland for pro-independence activity have received a state burial. The relatives of 17-year-old Home Army nurse Danuta Siedzikowna and 42-year-old officer Feliks Selmanowicz attended the ceremonies on Sunday along with government officials. The burials were held in the northern city of Gdansk where the two were captured....

Open your Facebook feed. What do you see? A photo of a close friend’s child. An automatically generated slide show commemorating six years of friendship between two acquaintances. An eerily on-target ad for something you’ve been meaning to buy. A funny video. A sad video. A recently live video. Lots of video; more video than you remember from before. A somewhat less-on-target ad. Someone you saw yesterday feeling blessed. Someone you haven’t seen in 10 years feeling worried.

Health Reform: This week Illinois' insurance regulator said ObamaCare premiums in the state will jump as high as 55%. The Obama administration's response to this and other news of massive rate hikes: Don't worry. Be happy. Anyone shopping for ObamaCare coverage in Illinois this fall is in for a big shock. The average increase for cheap Bronze plans is likely 44%. It's 45% for the lowest-cost Silver plan, and 55% for the cheapest Gold plan.

If we had only learned from the mistakes of others Chaos is the mother of tyranny. Chaos reigns when people operate in confusion and disorder. It is a state in which behavior and events are not controlled by reason. Today we are faced with a government and an elite controlled media that lie to the people and then lie about lying. They operate as if the country is theirs to run and ruin for their own personal enrichment. Chaos is a time like today when life makes little sense and we are force-fed such gobbledygook as the economy is booming,...

The internet has been abuzz with headlines declaring, “Almost Everything the Media Tell You About Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Is Wrong,” and “Johns Hopkins Shrinks Warn Against Kids Going Transgender.”As reported by Ryan T. Anderson on Monday, “A major new report, published today in the journal The New Atlantis, challenges the leading narratives that the media has pushed regarding sexual orientation and gender identity.”How significant was this report?“Co-authored by two of the nation’s leading scholars on mental health and sexuality, the 143-page report discusses over 200 peer-reviewed studies in the biological, psychological, and social sciences, painstakingly documenting what scientific...

In today’s public policy arena, winning ideas rarely are decided by sound logic, accurate facts, or even by the most votes. Instead, content filters and algorithms, meticulously engineered by social media companies like Facebook and Twitter, intentionally steer public debate in the direction of their owners’ personal politics; and, not coincidentally, toward the politics of their liberal friends in Washington and Sacramento.For starters, consider Facebook – the Big Daddy of social media. There have been numerous reports of Facebook’s algorithm taking down popular pages of pro-gun organizations. But even this example of the “new censorship” pales when viewed in the...