Free Republic

The Battle of Athens (sometimes called the McMinn County War) was a rebellion led by citizens in Athens and Etowah, Tennessee, United States, against the local government in August 1946. The citizens, including some World War II veterans, accused the local officials of political corruption and voter intimidation. Here is what happened: Following World War II in 1946, violence erupted when returning American soldiers discovered their Tennessee county had been taken over by political corruption. Their plan to take it back involved bullets—lots of bullets—and dynamite. Why Athens in McMinn County, Tennessee became a battleground was due to Paul Cantrell,...

The White House on Monday once again added to the list of people who knew about the IRS investigation into its targeting of conservative groups — saying White House chief of staff Denis McDonough had been informed about a month ago. Press secretary Jay Carney said again that no one had told President Barack Obama ahead of the first news reports: not his top aide McDonough, nor his chief counsel Kathy Ruemmler, nor anyone from the Treasury Department. Monday’s revelation amounts to the fifth iteration of the Obama administration’s account of events, after initially saying that the White House had...

THREE Fox News staffers were monitored by DOJ. WOW. WOW. WOW.— Katie Pavlich (@KatiePavlich) May 20, 2013 Whoa.Drip, drip, drip.Megyn Kelly is reporting that it was not just James Rosen who was targeted by Obama’s Department of Justice. @MegynKelly on @FoxNews now reporting not just Rosen targed by DoJ; 3 Fox News staffers.— Brian Faughnan (@BrianFaughnan) May 20, 2013 Not just one! Three Fox News staffers in DoJ sites reports @megynkelly #fb— johnny dollar (@johnnydollar01) May 20, 2013 Now @megynkelly reporting @JamesRosenFNC, another FNC reporter and producer were targeted by DOJ— Andy Lancaster (@andylancaster) May 20, 2013 Evidently, two...

I did not think that the administration would be so haughty to go after the Associated Press and monitor their official and private communications, especially given that the source of most national security leaks par excellence was the Obama White House itself. The AP sat on a story until they were given a quiet administration go-ahead to publish the account—even as the administration desperately wanted to scoop them and high-five over the story of the Yemeni double agent 24 hours earlier than the AP. The administration went whole hog after two months of phone records to send a message to...

Fox News reports that three Fox staffers, two reporters and one producer, were targeted by Barack Obama's Justice Department. Fox doesn't have all the details yet on a reporter William La Jeunesse and producer Mike Levine, but their emails showed up in a IG report regarding Fast and Furious. Either their emails were leaked by the Justice Department officials they were sent to, or the email accounts of both were subpoenaed and invaded by government investigators. The IG report does say that subpoenas were issued to obtain emails. Whose email was targeted is not yet known. The third staffer is...

Move on to What? By Chris Stirewalt Published May 20, 2013 | FoxNews.com “Already, officials that would normally talk to us, and people we talk to in the normal course of newsgathering are already saying to us that they’re a little reluctant to talk to us. They fear that they will be monitored by the government…It’s not hypothetical, we’re actually seeing impact already.” -- Gary Pruitt, president of the Associated Press, on “Face the Nation.” How does an administration move on from scandals that are still unfolding? The answer: Not very effectively. President Obama and his team tried last week...

A group members of the U.S. House of Representatives have sent Secretary of the Department of Human and Health Services, Kathleen Sebelius, a letter questioning her reported actions of soliciting donations from non-profit organizations that are “directly implementing” Obamacare. Florida’s Representatives Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Jeff Miller, Bill Posey and Trey Radel are among the 26 members of Congress who penned their signatures on the letter to Sebelius. The letter asks Secretary Sebelius if she indeed made the calls,how many did she make? In addition, Sebelius was asked if Department resources were used, and how much money was raised?

Fewer groups sught recognition as 501 (c)(4) social welfare organizations that year than in 2009, according to the Treasury Department. ...

It is now well known that the Obama justice department has prosecuted more government leakers under the 1917 Espionage Act than all prior administrations combined - in fact, double the number of all such prior prosecutions. But as last week's controversy over the DOJ's pursuit of the phone records of AP reporters illustrated, this obsessive fixation in defense of secrecy also targets, and severely damages, journalists specifically and the newsgathering process in general.

Daniele Perazzi, president of the Italian Perazzi Shotguns firm, was taken into custody yesterday by Adams County Deputies [see update, below] along with several prototype shotguns. The executive was picked up in the parking lot of the Denver Merchandise Mart, hosting the high-end Colorado Gun Collectors show this weekend, after a taxi driver, likely reacting to a suspicious activity reporting outreach program conducted by law enforcement, told authorities he thought he could be transporting an armed “foreign speaking” terror suspect. “He loaded prototype shotguns into the cab on the way to the Merchandise Mart,” gun rights activist and newly-elected National...

The IRS scandal keeps getting closer and closer to the top of the White House food chain as Obama officials desperately try to spin their way out of mounting evidence and foul play. The Wall Street Journal is reporting President Obama's top attorney knew about the IRS targeting weeks ago before news broke, but of course, Obama still didn't know about it until he learned about it "from the news." The White House's chief lawyer learned weeks ago that an audit of the Internal Revenue Service likely would show that agency employees inappropriately targeted conservative groups, a senior White House...

The scandals appearing in the news are merely symptoms of THE most important problem at hand, which has yet to explode on the scene. The Democrats stole the last presidential election (they first tried with Gore) and have probably stolen many legislative elections. Evidence seems to be mounting as one reads about the many precincts in Philadelphia having not a single Romney vote (statistical impossibility) and then the latest news were "True the Vote" was harassed by not only the IRS, but the FBI, OSHA AND the ATF. Since no charges were filed, WHO sicced four Federal agencies on an...

Catherine Engelbrecht’s tale has all the markings of a classic conspiracy theory: She says she thinks that because of her peaceful political activity, she and her family was targeted for scrutiny by hostile federal agencies. Yet as news emerges that the Internal Revenue Service wielded its power to obstruct conservative groups, Catherine’s story becomes credible — and chilling. It also raises questions about whether other federal agencies have used their executive powers to target those deemed political enemies. Before the Engelbrecht family’s three-year ordeal began, Catherine says, “I had no real expectation or preparation for the blood sport that American...

The Inspector General released a report this week and found that 63% of scrutinized IRS applications were withdrawn or were still unresolved. Conservative, Tea Party, pro-Israel and Christian groups were targeted by the IRS. (GRAPHIC-AT-LINK) The Obama IRS refused to grant tax exempt status to Christian and pro-life groups on behalf of the abortion group Planned Parenthood. “In one case, the IRS withheld approval of an application for tax exempt status for Coalition for Life of Iowa. In a phone call to Coalition for Life of Iowa leaders on June 6, 2009, the IRS agent ‘Ms. Richards’ told the group...

Posted by Jim Hoft on Sunday, May 19, 2013, 2:50 PM The hits keep coming… Two independent IRS offices targeted Hawaii conservative leader Dylan Nonaka last year at the same time. hawaii gop Dylan Nonaka is former executive director of the Hawaii GOP The Daily Caller reported, via FOX Nation: In what former Republican executive and activist Dylan Nonaka is calling a massive invasion of privacy that suggests a coordinated effort to target conservative groups, two IRS offices last year independently and simultaneously conducted costly audits and sought tea party-related training materials that they apparently believed could be tied to...

The Internal Revenue Service scandal may be the worst of all the current Obama administration fiascoes. It is an easily understood gross misuse of the powers of government to target opponents of the president. What is more, the administration’s supplicants in the lefty punditocracy can no longer claim this is just an IRS scandal. The Post reports: J. Russell George, the Treasury Department’s top tax watchdog, said Friday he had informed top Treasury officials starting last spring about problems related to the special attention the agency was paying some conservative organizations seeking tax-exempt status. George said he shared the information...

The president and chief executive officer of The Associated Press on Sunday called the government's secret seizure of two months of reporters' phone records "unconstitutional" and said the news cooperative had not ruled out legal action against the Justice Department. Gary Pruitt, in his first television interviews since it was revealed the Justice Department subpoenaed phone records of AP reporters and editors, said the move already has had a chilling effect on journalism. Pruitt said the seizure has made sources less willing to talk to AP journalists and, in the long term, could limit Americans' information from all news outlets.

You know what the IRS is really great at? Breaking its own laws. In addition to targeting conservative groups, the corrupt government agency has also been singling out disabled veterans. They do this by using banks to launder and then stealing the veterans’ disability checks. Shameful. The Veterans Disability Act of 2010 exempts VA disability from withholding of any sort. But the IRS has been stealing disabled veterans’ money anyways. Kevin Lake is a 60% disabled veteran of the Iraq War. A few months ago, he noticed that his VA disability check had not been deposited, and that his bank...

Hofstra student shot in head by cop while being used as human shield during home invasion By KIERAN CROWLEY, KENNETH GARGER and KATHIANNE BONIELLO Last Updated: 11:13 PM, May 18, 2013 Andrea Rebello (r.), here with her twin Jessica in an Instagram photo, was killed by the friendly fire of a police officer during a shootout with home invader Dalton Smith. The Hofstra University student killed during a home invasion robbery was the victim of friendly fire from a veteran cop who unleashed a barrage of bullets when the armed intruder pointed a gun at him, Nassau County police announced...

There were new questions Saturday night concerning if anyone in the White House was aware of the IRS' targeting of conservative groups. Inspector General Russell George said he informed a deputy at the Treasury Department in June of 2012 about the probe into the IRS. The Treasury Department confirmed the timeline but said they did not know the details of the investigation until last week. It's the first evidence that someone within the Obama administration knew about the practice during the presidential campaign. It is unknown whether anyone in the White House was told of the federal investigation. Republican Congressman...

ProPublica, a left-leaning nonprofit organization that does investigative journalism, often sharing it with outlets like the Washington Post, offers its own revelation on the news that the Internal Revenue Service was targeting Tea Party groups. It was the recipient of some of the IRS documents. These were documents that even ProPublica admits the IRS should not have been giving out according to the agency’s own rules: The same IRS office that deliberately targeted conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status in the run-up to the 2012 election released nine pending confidential applications of

Treasury Secretary Jack Lew on Friday urged congressional leaders to raise the debt limit and insisted that the White House is not going to negotiate over the increase because lawmakers have "no choice." "We will not negotiate over the debt limit," Lew wrote. "The creditworthiness of the United States is non-negotiable. The question of whether the country must pay obligations it has already incurred is not open to debate." Lew said that while President Obama is willing to discuss plans to reduce the nation's deficit with Congress, those talks must be kept separate from any effort to raise the nation's...

This is a woman we will need to learn much more about in the coming weeks. Sarah Hall Ingram is a highly valued employee at the IRS. In the last three years she has received $103,390 in bonuses for her excellent work. She was the Commissioner of the Tax-Exempt and Government Entitles Division. Under her leadership, groups that expressed a fear of large, out-of-control government were systematically crushed by her branch of our large, out-of-control government. They were specifically singled out for harassment for political reasons. Secret information about the conservative applicants was leaked to leftist opposition groups to facilitate...

In an interview with AlterNet this past week, America’s most well-known left-wing intellectual slammed President Obama for his inexplicable “attacks” on civil liberties in the forms of various laws expanding upon the executive powers set forth by President George W. Bush. Speaking with the liberal blog’s Mike Stivers, Chomsky expressed dissatisfaction with the current president’s record on civil liberties: “I personally never expected anything of Obama, and wrote about it before the 2008 primaries. I thought it was smoke and mirrors. The one thing that did surprise me is his attack on civil liberties. They go well beyond anything I...

KMOV anchorman Larry Conners has been “advised” by KMOV’s parent company Belo Corp. to not make statements, post on Facebook, or participate in interviews concerning a recent controversy over Facebook comments he made about the Internal Revenue Service. Conners has hired St. Louis attorney Merle Silverstein. Silverstein issued a letter to media outlets claiming that the corporate order “is the only reason for his silence.” Conners wrote Monday night that shortly after he interviewed President Obama and his wife in April of 2012, the IRS “started hammering” him.

Via the Examiner and NRO, a few more credible, confidence-inspiring breadcrumbs from this morning’s Ways and Means hearing. It’s starting to make sense now why protesting Planned Parenthood might present a risk to your tax-exempt status, isn’t it?The second clip is of Miller saying that he did indeed ask his underlings who was targeting conservative groups, and they told him, but now he can’t remember the answer. Really. The disdain this guy harbors for the proceedings is palpable, but that’s probably in his best interest: The more antagonistic he is, the more liberal support he’ll have when the administration inevitably...

For 92 percent of requests from green groups, the EPA cooperated by waiving fees for the information. Those requests came from the Natural Resources Defense Council, EarthJustice, Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, The Waterkeeper Alliance, Greenpeace, Southern Environmental Law Center and the Center for Biological Diversity. Of the requests that were denied, the EPA said the group either didn’t respond to requests for justification of a waiver, or didn’t express intent to disseminate the information to the general public, according to documents obtained by The Washington Examiner. CEI, on the other hand, had its requests denied 93 percent of the...

Democracy: The IRS targeting of Tea Party groups is mind-boggling not only for its abuse of government power. It's also disturbing for what it intended to do: destroy civil society, opening a door for tyranny. The formation in 2009 of hundreds of Tea Party groups at the rallying cry of CNBC news editor Rick Santelli, from places as diverse as Lowell, Mass., Pleasanton, Calif., Asheville, N.C., Yuma, Ariz., and Lincoln, Neb., among hundreds of others, was a spontaneous reaction by ordinary American citizens to an overspending, oversized government whose overreach called into question its constitutionality. Yet it was these very...

<p>Long before the Internal Revenue Service revealed it had improperly targeted conservative 501(c)(4) groups, a group of Democratic senators led by New York Sen. Chuck Schumer urged the IRS to do just that.</p> <p>The IRS’s admission last Friday that it had singled out tea party and other groups for extra audits and delays has raised concerns that President Barack Obama’s administration quietly attempted to stymy opponents through intimidation. But many prominent Democrats — including Montana Sen. Max Baucus, Americans United for the Separation of Church and State and the New York Times editorial board — had been publicly calling for tighter restrictions on 501(c)(4) groups affiliated with the tea party and conservatives.</p>

GOP Rep. Mike Kelly was a huge hit at Friday’s House hearing on IRS harassment of conservative groups as he skewered acting IRS commissioner Steven Miller. Some tasty highlights from his fiery rant:Rep Kelly to Miller: You think this is uncomfortable? Try being a citizen being targeted by the IRS.Kelly: "This confirms that the #IRS can do anything they want, anytime they want, to anyone they want. " "Where you're sitting, you should be outraged, but you're not." Rep, Kelly to Miller #IRS #Waysandmeanscommittee "Is there any limit to the scope as to where you folks can go? … It's...

Today, the Thomas More Society offered over 150 pages of analysis and evidence to the House Ways and Means Committee about repeated IRS harassment of pro-life organizations. At the request of Congressman Aaron Schock (R-IL), Thomas More Society President Thomas Brejcha, Executive Director Peter Breen, and Special Counsel Sally Wagenmaker, prepared the legal memorandum with solid evidence of IRS harassment of pro-life organizations dating back to 2009. Shock asked the IRS commissioner today if this discrimination is appropriate and he was unable to say yes or no. The memo details the history of IRS misconduct in the cases of three...

WASHINGTON – The outgoing leader of the Internal Revenue Service drew audible “wows” from Republicans on the House Ways and Means Committee on Friday for saying he doesn’t think what the agency did to tea party groups was illegal. “It is absolutely not illegal,” Steve Miller, the acting commissioner of the IRS who resigned this week because of the scandal, said while being questioned by Georgia Rep. Tom Price. A number of legislators let out bursts of “wow” at his answer. Here’s their exchange:

The IRS under the Obama administration painted targets on the backs of conservatives beginning in 2010, and ousted acting IRS commissioner Steven Miller apologized to the House Ways and Means Committee on Friday. But members on both sides of the aisle were furious, and castigated him for the mismanagement and political gamesmanship the IRS engaged in on his watch. Texas Republican congressman Kevin Brady had the harshest criticism for Miller. ‘Is this still America?' he asked him.

NBC's Lisa Myers reported this morning that the IRS deliberately chose not to reveal that it had wrongly targeted conservative groups until after the 2012 presidential election:

The Internal Revenue Service official in charge of the tax-exempt organizations at the time when the unit targeted tea party groups now runs the IRS office responsible for the health care legislation. Sarah Hall Ingram served as commissioner of the office responsible for tax-exempt organizations between 2009 and 2012. But Ingram has since left that part of the IRS and is now the director of the IRS’ Affordable Care Act office, the IRS confirmed to ABC News today. Her successor, Joseph Grant, is taking the fall for misdeeds at the scandal-plagued unit between 2010 and 2012. During at least part...

Instead of answering that he did not know what the IRS was doing, as he was asked, he only answers that did not know about the Inspector General’s report. Attorney and Fox News host Megyn Kelly called his answer “non-responsive”, and emphasized, as I just did, that he did not deny knowing what the IRS had been doing while they were doing it.” Developing… “Can you assure the American people that nobody in the White House knew about the agency’s actions before your White House’s counsel’s office found out on April 22?” – Bloomberg’s Julianna Goldman “Let me make sure...

ObamaCare critics report IRS harassment after being reported to Flag@WhiteHouse.gov WASHINGTON – Congressman Steve Stockman Tuesday asked two House chairmen to investigate allegations individuals reported to a White House email address for criticizing Obama’s health care reforms were targeted with Internal Revenue Service audits. During the debate over adopting ObamaCare the White House encouraged liberal activists to report Obama’s critics to a “Flag@WhiteHouse.gov” email address. At least one of those reported tells RedState.com editor Erick Erickson he was then targeted with audits. “Remember that website Obama set up to report neighbors who opposed Obamacare? A friend reported himself and got...

Madison, WI (LifeNews.com) – The Department of Homeland Security admitted today that it improperly conducted a threat assessment on pro-life and pro-abortion groups in Wisconsin. The assessment came before an expected rally last year in response to the University of Wisconsin Hospital board decided to allow abortions. In February 2009, pro-life advocates planned to protest the hospital’s decision to open up a new Madison Surgery Center doing abortions. The Associated Press reported today that the department said in a memo that it "destroyed all of the copies of the assessment after an internal review found it violated intelligence gathering guidelines...

New allegations claim the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) not only delayed the applications of new conservative groups, but also targeted a Christian group, Family Talk Action, and a well-established group, the Leadership Institute. In September 2011, well-known family advocate Dr. James Dobson's newest Christian ministry, Family Talk Action Corporation, filed a Form 1024 with the IRS requesting 501(c)(4) status. The attorney in charge had 26 years experience of filing these forms. "The Family Talk application was every bit as compliant as the ones he'd filled out in the past," said Alex McFarland, the group's Director of Apologetics. McFarland told The...

Mr. President, when it rains it pours, but most Americans hold their own umbrellas. Today in the Rose Garden you dismissed the idea of a Special Counsel to investigate the IRS scandal. With that, your galling political hubris shined bright in the midst of today’s dark clouds. Mr. President, how can we trust your Justice Department to conduct an independent investigation when there is a systemic violation of the Hatch Act throughout your administration? Surely you are aware that the Hatch Act prevents certain federal employees from engaging in political activity. Specifically, it’s illegal for these federal employees to engage...

The recent scandals that have rocked the White House represent Americans’ worst fears about big government: Your government is spying on you; your government is targeting you; and your government is lying to you. Americans should be outraged, but they should not be surprised. It would be wrong to view the controversy over the IRS scandal as a typical Republican vs. Democrat squabble. The IRS is a powerful agency that can influence nearly every decision Americans make through its authority to tax and regulate. The IRS grows stronger and more powerful the more the federal government spends and borrows. Organizations...

WASHINGTON (CBSDC/AP) — President Barack Obama continues to back Attorney General Eric Holder following the fallout over the Justice Department secretly obtaining two months of telephone records of reporters and editors for The Associated Press.During a Rose Garden press conference alongside Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan Thursday, the president stated that he has “complete confidence” in the job Holder is doing.Obama defended the leak probes as necessary for national security and called for a balance with press freedom.“Leaks related to national security can put people at risk,” Obama said, adding that “we still don’t know all the details...

mistrust of government is as old as America itself. America was born out of mistrust of government. The revolution that was fought in the 1770s and 1780s was won in the minds of Colonists in the mid-1760s when the British imposed the Stamp Act and used writs of assistance to enforce it. The Stamp Act required all people in the Colonies to have government-sold stamps on all documents in their possession, and writs of assistance permitted search warrants written by British troops in which they authorized themselves to enter private homes ostensibly to look for the stamps. These two pieces...

NOM says IRS illegally leaked donor info...

It's rigorous work keeping pace with all of these scandals, as House Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer discovered earlier this week, but we're doing our best nonetheless. On the IRS targeting issue, we covered a lot of ground yesterday and earlier, but the "fun" never ceases. It will come as a surprise to no one that IRS employees lean heavily Democratic. Their livelihoods depend on the existence of big, complicated government, so of course they'd vote blue. In the 2012 cycle, during which their agency's abusive methods were in place, IRS employees donated to Barack Obama over Mitt Romney by more...

The IRS? It’s about a union: the National Treasury Employees Union. The NTEU. A left-wing union representing 150,000 employees in 31 separate government agencies, including the IRS. A union that not only endorsed President Obama for election and re-election, but a union whose current president, Colleen Kelly, was a 14-year IRS agent and now is both union president and Obama administration appointee (of which more in a moment). It’s about 94% of NTEU union contributions going to Democrats in the Senate and House in 2012 — candidates who campaigned as vociferous opponents of the Tea Party. And the recently released...

Franklin Graham calls IRS probe of ministry finances ‘un-American’ Adelle M. Banks | May 15, 2013 (RNS) Evangelist Franklin Graham blasted the Internal Revenue Service probe of conservative nonprofit groups as “un-American,” saying both the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association and the relief group Samaritan’s Purse were audited by the IRS. In a Tuesday (May 14) letter to President Obama, Graham said the two organizations he leads were notified last September that the IRS would review their records for the 2010 tax year. The IRS inquiry, he noted, occurred months after the BGEA ran ads in April 2012 supporting a North...

Thursday, May 16, 2013 May 16, 2013 Another IRS scandal: agents illegally seized 60 million medical records Image009And as if there's not already an abundance of problems at the IRS, another one erupts, involving 60 million private medical records of 10 million patients - including all California state judges - from Healthcare IT News: The Internal Revenue Service is now facing a class action lawsuit over allegations that it improperly accessed and stole the health records of some 10 million Americans, including medical records of all California state judges. According to a report by Courthousenews.com, an unnamed HIPAA-covered entity in...

In this video, a group of officers arrive at a home and, through a closed screen door, demand that the occupants come outside. The unidentified man inside, along with his female companion, demand that the officers produce a warrant, but they don’t. When the police continue to demand that they come outside, and order that both occupants raise their hands, the man responds that he doesn’t live in a police state with martial law. He also warns the police that he is video-recording everything. Eventually, the police breakthrough a side door and tase the man with the video camera. It...