Free Republic

After the federal Bureau of Land Management agents backed down from their intimidating stance at the Bundy Ranch last weekend, ample evidence has surfaced indicating the standoff between the government and the Nevada ranching family is far from over. Throughout the weeklong stalemate, members of the Bundy family were physically assaulted by armed officers, numerous cows were shot dead, and protesters faced threats of gunfire for merely expressing their outrage. Immediately after what many considered a victory against a tyrannical federal agency, a number of leftist voices – most notably, Sen. Harry Reid – indicated the action against this family...

Nearly half of American voters think the IRS targeted conservative groups at the request of the White House, and most want Congress to keep investigating the matter. The latest Fox News poll also finds 69 percent don’t feel President Obama has followed through on his vow to “find out exactly what happened on this.” By a 49-41 percent margin, voters believe the Obama administration “intentionally had the IRS target conservative political groups.” That includes 26 percent of Democrats, 52 percent of independents and 71 percent of Republicans. Overall, 72 percent of voters disagree with the president when he says there...

New emails show that both the IRS and Justice Department were involved in a probe of Tea Party and other conservative groups. This is no mere scandal — it's a major breach of the law. President Obama told Fox News in February that there wasn't "even a smidgen of corruption" in what the IRS did. The corruption is there, Mr. President, and it demands a prosecution. The only remaining question is whether the rot extends to your office, too.

A federal judge in Oregon has found that an immigrant woman's constitutional rights were violated when she was held in jail without probable cause at the request of U.S. immigration authorities, one of several recent federal court decisions to scrutinize the practice of keeping people in jail after they're eligible for release so that they can be considered for deportation. The rulings make it clear that local officials are not required to honor immigration authorities' requests that someone in custody continue to be held even though their original charges were resolved or they are eligible for bail, and that local...

Federal systems remained vulnerable to hackers even after researchers identified the bug. Google knew about a critical flaw in Internet security, but it didn't alert anyone in the government. Neel Mehta, a Google engineer, first discovered "Heartbleed"—a bug that undermines the widely used encryption technology OpenSSL—some time in March. A team at the Finnish security firm Codenomicon discovered the flaw around the same time. Google was able to patch most of its services—such as email, search, and YouTube—before the companies publicized the bug on April 7. The researchers also notified a handful of other companies about the bug before going...

Apr 15, 2014 4:03PM ET / Politics Your Photo Could Be Included in the FBI’s New Facial Recognition Database Lucy Westcott If you're applying for a job in the near future, there's a chance you could end up on the FBI's imminent new facial recognition database alongside criminals, whether you like it or not. According to information obtained by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the database, known as Next Generation Identification (NGI), will for the first time combine criminal and noncriminal fingerprint databases, along with records of palm prints, iris scans, and mugshots. The NGI, which sounds like Facebook mixed with...

Cannot excerpt from phone. City demanding that citizens pay up to $10,000 for sidewalks in a crime ridden city. Watch as more people leave and the tax base dries up further. There is a special place in hell for people who impose things lime this on hard working citizens.

<p>EAST ST. LOUIS, Ill. (AP) — A southwestern Illinois state trooper is facing a felony aggravated battery charge after authorities say he strip-searched a man along the side of a road during a traffic stop.</p> <p>The (Belleville) News-Democrat reports 32-year-old Cory Alberson was released on $20,000 bail on Monday after he pleaded not guilty.</p>

By midnight on April 15, roughly 140 million Americans will have filed their federal income tax returns and breathed a sigh of relief. Politicians from both parties, however, will spend most of the day criticizing our current tax system. --snip-- Creating a new tax regime based on the ability to pay had significant consequences. Not only did it provide sorely needed revenue while addressing growing inequality, it also fostered greater social solidarity and bolstered faith in government — a lesson lost on many lawmakers today. Reformers believed progressive taxes could be used to reconfigure the relationship between citizens and the...

A Bay Area federal judge says the Obama administration can keep secret a memo spelling out the legal rationale for a 2011 drone attack in Yemen that killed a U.S. citizen and alleged terrorist mastermind.

In his column last week, Charles Krauthammer crossed a line. He declared the American left totalitarian. He is correct. Totalitarianism is written into the left's DNA. Krauthammer wrote about a left-wing petition "bearing more than 110,000 signatures delivered to the [Washington] Post demanding a ban on any article questioning global warming." He concluded: "I was gratified by the show of intolerance because it perfectly illustrated my argument that the left is entering a new phase of ideological agitation -- no longer trying to win the debate but stopping debate altogether, banishing from public discourse any and all opposition. The proper...

A Bay Area federal judge says the Obama administration can keep secret a memo spelling out the legal rationale for a 2011 drone attack in Yemen that killed a U.S. citizen and alleged terrorist mastermind. The ruling dismissed a suit by the First Amendment Coalition, an open-government advocacy group in San Rafael. The organization sued after a September 2011 drone strike in Yemen that killed Anwar al-Awlaki, a U.S.-born Muslim cleric whom authorities suspected of organizing an attempt to blow up a Detroit-bound airliner in 2009. Another U.S. citizen was also killed in the drone attack, and Awlaki's U.S.-born, 16-year-old...

Warning follows threat from Harry Reid that grazing dispute 'not over' The chief of the Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association says his sources inside the federal government are warning that Washington’s weekend retreat in a dispute over grazing land in Nevada was just to distract and defuse – because a raid on the family’s ranch still is being strategized. And there probably would be violence involved, said Richard Mack, the former sheriff of Grisham County, Ariz. “I don’t think it would be possible” to launch a raid without violence, he told WND Monday. “I don’t the Bundys would lie...

BUNKERVILLE — Cliven Bundy’s fight with the Bureau of Land Management over the federal agency’s roundup of his cattle attracted a diverse group of foot soldiers: fellow ranchers, Las Vegans and militia and patriot groups were among them. Their battle cry is the U.S. Constitution and liberty. They fear the federal government overstepping its bounds at every turn. This concern, in their view, applies to those from all walks of life, be it a rural Southern Nevada rancher or a militia member from northern Montana. Ultimately, the Bundy protest — which was defused Saturday when federal land officials agreed to...

Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy said Monday that his standoff with the feds isn’t just about cattle: It’s about an “overpowering” bureaucracy in the U.S. that needs to be disarmed. “I only want to talk to one person in each county across the United States, and here’s what I want to say: County sheriffs, disarm U.S. bureaucracy. County sheriffs, disarm U.S. bureaucrats,” Bundy said on Glenn Beck’s radio show on TheBlaze on Monday. Beck said he invited Bundy on his show after speaking with him Sunday to try to understand the man whose cattle have ignited a flashpoint between federal regulators...

As tensions rose and a standoff ensued between Bureau of Land Management (BLM) agents and Cliven Bundy and his family on April 11th and 12th, one thing was evident: through the Second Amendment, the Founding Fathers guaranteed that Bundy could be armed to protect his life and property. KLAS-TV described a meeting between armed federal agents and armed Bundy family members during one of the highest points of tension. No guns were misused nor were any used offensively. However, guns were present because of our Founding Fathers' forethought. We do not have guns for the purposes of sporting or hunting--although...

Health Overhaul: The midwife of ObamaCare exits stage left, leaving behind wreckage that once was the finest health care system in the world, less affordable health insurance and patients unable to find doctors and hospitals. Kathleen Sebelius, the secretary of Health and Human Services — referred to in the increasingly un-Affordable Care Act's iconic use of the phrase "the Secretary shall determine," which appears in ObamaCare's guiding document no fewer than 1,005 times — has determined that it's time to go. Or rather it's been determined for her by a White House in whose parallel universe ObamaCare's current alleged enrollment...

Here’s your history lesson of the day, and it’s a duzy. Do you all remember the department store chain Montgomery Ward? It was in the same class as JC Penney and Sears, and like Penney’s and Sears had a robust catalog business in the 20th century. The catalog ended in 1985 and the stores closed in 2000. The incident we are going to talk about happened during World War 2, in 1944. When I read this it initially put my jaw on the floor, but when I thought about it for a moment, I realized that it put all...

Bundy Ranch Standoff: Meet the BLM thug who tackled a 57-year old woman. (See my post entitled, “Margaret Bundy Houston Tells Town Board of Being Tackled by BLM: Feds Take Cattle Watering System.”) His name is Michael Roop. Roop is a State Staff Ranger for BLM, Oregon and to put it mildly, on the internet, this punk with a gun, badge, pepper spray and a K-9 is trending.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said little as federal agents seized and then released cattle last week from the Bundy ranch, but there is little doubt that the highly charged episode was threatening to become a political headache for the Nevada Democrat. The Bureau of Land Management is headed by former longtime Reid aide Neil Kornze, who was confirmed by the Senate as BLM director on Tuesday, just as federal authorities descended on the cattle ranch outside Mesquite, Nev.

Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin blasted President Barack Obama on Saturday for either not understanding or deliberately disrespecting the Constitution. "We have a president who doesn't understand or just chooses to disrespect our Constitution," Palin said on Fox News' Cashin In with host Eric Bolling. Obama has unilaterally changed immigration, health care, and welfare laws, among others, according to Palin, and she said that he has sent a message with his actions that an elite crew will run the government as they see fit instead of "We the People." She also said there needs to be "new energy" in government...

DEA raids woman`s Shorewood home after she shops at garden center Posted: Apr 12, 2014 CHICAGO (FOX 32 News) - A woman in the southwest suburbs says she woke up to find armed DEA agents pointing guns at her -- all because she shopped at a hydroponic garden center. Angela Kirkling was driven out of her bed in Shorewood at gunpoint. The DEA had started investigating her because she had made a purchase at a hydroponics shop. Agents say they thought she was growing pot indoors. Police had also been digging through her garbage and tracking her electrical bill.

Breathe Deep, America, While Liberty Is in the Air   By Arthur P. Hall, IIMr. Hall is director of research, Citizens for a Sound Economy, Washington, D. C "By liberty, I understand the power which every man has over his own actions, and his right to enjoy the fruit of his labor, art, and industry, as far as by it he hurts not the society, or any member of it, by taking from any member, or by hindering him from enjoying what he himself enjoys. The fruits of a man's honest industry are the just rewards of it, ascertained to...

The Bureau of Land Management vowed Saturday that it would continue its legal fight to remove illegal cattle from a rural Nevada range after ending a tense weeklong standoff with a rancher and his supporters. "After 20 years and multiple court orders to remove the trespass cattle, [rancher Cliven] Bundy owes the American taxpayers in excess of $1 million. The BLM will continue to work to resolve the matter administratively and judicially," a statement from the bureau said. "We ask that all parties in the area remain peaceful and law-abiding as the Bureau of Land Management and National Park Service...

WASHINGTON — Stepping into a heated debate within the nation’s intelligence agencies, President Obama has decided that when the National Security Agency discovers major flaws in Internet security, it should — in most circumstances — reveal them to assure that they will be fixed, rather than keep mum so that the flaws can be used in espionage or cyberattacks, senior administration officials said Saturday. But Mr. Obama carved a broad exception for “a clear national security or law enforcement need,” the officials said, a loophole that is likely to allow the N.S.A. to continue to exploit security flaws both to...

Despite popular belief, every culture of every nation draws a line in the sand against government tyranny. The problem is, many draw this line so close to total defeat that it rarely matters. For the Jews of the Warsaw Ghetto, for instance, it wasn't until the Germans had already herded millions onto railroad cars destined for death camps and cornered the rest into dilapidated central housing that the ZOB resistance was formed, only to be wiped out a month later. Perhaps hindsight is 20/20, but clearly too many freedom movements throughout history waited too long to respond to the trespasses...

You just can't make this stuff up.

An intense showdown in the state of Nevada between a family of ranchers and federal agents continues to escalate after a longstanding land dispute two decades in the making came to a head earlier this month. As RT reported earlier this week, hundreds of armed agents with the United States Bureau of Land Management and the Federal Bureau of Investigation have descended on the Clark County, Nevada ranch of 67-year-old Cliven Bundy to execute the court-ordered confiscation of nearly 1,000 cattle, according to his family, which the US government says have trespassed on federal property. The Washington Free Beacon newspaper...

BUNKERVILLE — The militiamen rolled in to draw a line in the dirt. About 70 miles northeast of Las Vegas, they set up camp on a sun-baked patch of land next to a bend in the Virgin River, keeping supplies — like rucksacks and sleeping bags — in neat piles under the roof of an abandoned shack. Gruff and largely unshaven, dressed in camouflage fatigues and cut-off shirts, the men kept their intentions quiet, telling news reporters the reason they pulled their trucks into this rural desert town — on one of the hottest days of the year — is...

Nevada’s Democrat secretary of state says he’ll do all in his power to crush a conservative organization that ran ads against him in his campaign to become the state’s attorney general. Sound familiar? It’s part of a “disturbing trend,” said Matthew Walter, executive director of the State Government Leadership Foundation, the conservative nonprofit behind the ads that earned the ire of Nevada Secretary of State Ross Miller. “This is all about freedom of speech,” Walter said. “Whether it’s President Obama’s Internal Revenue Service and their unbalanced scrutiny into conservative organizations, or whether it’s Ross Miller with his threats and blustering...

BYERS, Texas (RFD-TV) Most people think the border between Texas and Oklahoma is the Red River. Unfortunately, it’s a little more complicated than that, especially along the part of the river where Tommy Henderson and his family ranch. Henderson lost a lawsuit 30 years ago that moved part of the northern Texas border over a mile to the south. The Bureau of Land Management [BLM] took 140 acres of his property and didn’t pay him one cent. Now, they want to use his case as precedent to seize land along a 116-mile stretch of the river. “They’re wanting to take...

Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy’s decades-long battle against the federal government over grazing rights has heated to the point where militia groups have joined in and taken up spots against the feds who’ve circled his land — and talk is, they’re not afraid to open fire. A spokesman for the one of the militia groups said as much to local 8 News Now: I’m not “afraid to shoot,” he said. Margaret Houston, Mr. Bundy’s sister and a cancer survivor, said at a town hall gathering this week that the situation “was like a war zone” and that she felt “like I...

A Thursday Huffington Post article highlighting Obamacare victims is causing quite a stir on the left. The piece, titled "How Obamacare Leaves Some People Without Doctors," breaks from the Huffington Post's usual embrace of Obamacare and features the voices of Covered California customers who are already dissatisfied with the health insurance they bought through the Covered California exchange. "My insurance is pretty useless," 35-year-old new Los Angeles mother Ruth Iorio told HuffPo. "I don't know what to do. I may just drop it for myself and keep my son on it. It's really depressing." Iorio says her Obamacare plan is...

Homofascist Tyranny The tyranny of homofascism must be opposed By Michael Voris The Vortex April 9, 2014 Grab a pen and write the word down as quickly as you can and start using it everywhere – the word is .. homofascists .. as in homofascism. A working definition you ask? How’s this for starters? Homofascism – “a way of organizing a society in which homosexualists impose their agenda with which no one is allowed to disagree or have any appeal to the contrary without being subjected to severe consequences of ridicule, slander, libel, fines, public demonstrations, distortions, denial of free...

U.S 'Tosh.0' production assistant shot, killed by cops after he's mistaken for stabbing suspect in Los Angeles John Winkler was reportedly trying escape Alexander McDonald, who had allegedly been holding two of his neighbors hostage at knifepoint, when L.A. County sheriff's deputies gunned him down Monday night. BY Lee Moran NEW YORK DAILY NEWS Friday, April 11, 2014, 6:29 AM

After Attorney General Eric Holder revealed that he was considering forcing gun owners to wear identifying bracelets, former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin harshly warned him that he better not even think about trying to implement the idea. "Eric, 'You don't want to go there, buddy,'" she declared on Wednesday. Palin posted a photo (see below) of the three bracelets she often wears and explained the significance of each: Hey Eric, these are my identifying bracelets: One honors our military; One honors independent Americans who have a healthy distrust of Washington's permanent political class and who will fight against elitists hell-bent...

Enrollment for the president's health care law has grown to 7.5 million Americans, the Obama administration announced Thursday, handing President Barack Obama and the Democrats bigger coverage numbers to tout in the face of election-year attacks. Sebelius said she expects the figure to continue to grow. The original number already exceeded expectations, a surprise success after a disastrous roll-out and welcome news for Democrats who've been forced to defend their support for the unpopular law derided by critics as "Obamacare." Democratic senators took turns Thursday praising the robust sign-up numbers.

Anxious and somber faces greet me as I step into the crowded waiting room. A sense of dread fills the air. Men and women sit silently, clutching folders and envelopes, stacks of papers and piles of files. The fear in the air is so thick you can almost cut it with a knife. I join the morbid group as I slump into the nearest empty chair and wait for my turn to see....the ACCOUNTANT! It's tax time, and even though we go through the same depressing ritual year-after-year, it just doesn't get any easier. If I think about it too...

Lawmakers line up behind plan that dumps Electoral College without constitutional amendment The National Popular Vote effort, which could see the 14 states with the largest populations decide the presidency, is more than halfway to its goal of legally bypassing the Electoral College established in the Constitution. Last week, the Maine state Senate voted in support of the plan one week after both houses of the New York legislature overwhelmingly supported it. Now the governors of both states will need to decide whether to formally back the National Popular Vote, or NPV. The plan is more than halfway to its...

Offering a first glimpse of the health care needs of Americans who bought coverage through federal and state marketplaces, an analysis of the first two months of claims data shows the new enrollees are more likely to use expensive specialty drugs to treat conditions like HIV/AIDS and hepatitis C than those with job-based insurance. The sample of claims data - considered a preliminary look at whether new enrollees are sicker-than-average - also found that prescriptions for treating pain, seizures and depression are also proportionally higher in exchange plans, according to Express Scripts, one of the nation's largest pharmacy benefit management...

April 08, 2014 Attorney General Eric Holder disrespects Congress and needs to be impeached -- warns Gohmert (R-TX) to avoid talking about Holder's contempt citation There comes a time when the Constitution must be defended by those members of Congress, regardless of their party affiliations, who have taken an oath …

<p>Attorney General Eric Holder said on Friday that gun tracking bracelets are something the Justice Department (DOJ) wants to "explore" as part of its gun control efforts.</p> <p>When discussing gun violence prevention programs within the DOJ, Holder told a House appropriations subcommittee that his agency is looking into technological innovations.</p>

A new report from the head of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee tries to discredit Democratic claims that the Internal Revenue Service targeted both liberal and conservative groups for extra scrutiny during the past two election cycles. “These Democratic claims are flat-out wrong and have no basis in any thorough examination of the facts,” Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), the panel’s chairman, said in an executive summary of the findings. Before the 2010 election, the IRS began using “be on the lookout” lists, or BOLOs, to screen for groups that might be involved in too much political activity to...

<p>WASHINGTON (April 7, 2014) - The Supreme Court has turned down an appeal from a commercial photography business in New Mexico that objects to taking pictures of same-sex wedding ceremonies.</p>

If President Obama means what he says about wanting an immigration system that reflects American values, helps the economy and taps the yearnings of millions of Americans-in-waiting, he is going to have to do something about it — soon and on his own. It has been frustrating to watch his yes-we-can promises on immigration reform fade to protestations of impotence and the blaming of others. All Mr. Obama has been saying lately is: No, in fact, we can’t, because Republicans and the law won’t let me. Mr. Obama is correct when he complains that long-term immigration repairs have been throttled...

Mozilla, the company that operates the web browser Firefox, experienced its highest level of negative customer feedback the day after its embattled co-founder Brendan Eich resigned as CEO after gay rights activists objected to his appointment. On Thursday, Mozilla forced Eich to resign just two weeks after hiring him. At issue was a $1,000 donation Eich gave in 2008 in support of California’s Proposition 8, a successful ballot initiative which banned gay marriage. The decision to remove the man who invented the web scripting language JavaScipt did not sit well with many customers — many of them pelted Mozilla’s website...

More mission creep, more highhanded government causing problems for citizens (Fox News)"A federal proposal requiring more efficiency from wood-burning stoves has ignited a debate between the Obama administration and lawmakers who oppose the new regulations, arguing the rules impose an unfair burden on people in remote areas. The Environmental Protection Agency proposed a rule changes in January that would dramatically tighten emissions requirements on new wood-powered heaters, though does not impact ones already in homes. The EPA estimates that as much as 13 percent of all soot pollution in the U.S. is a result of inefficient wood-fired stoves and boilers."Is...

On Thursday, CEO Brendan Eich of Mozilla was forced out of his job thanks to his $1,000 donation to the Proposition 8 pro-traditional marriage effort in California in 2008. At that point, he held the exact same position as Barack Obama on traditional marriage. Now, that position has soured in the nostrils of the militant left, which seeks to ruin the lives of those with whom it disagrees. ~~snip~~ Google Adsense Shuts Down WorldNetDaily. On February 6, Google Adsense notified WorldNetDaily’s Joseph Farah that it would be cancelling WND’s account thanks to a “policy violation email this morning regarding negative/hate...

In a press conference heralding the attainment of 7 million enrollments in his signature Affordable Care Act insurance plan this past Monday, President Obama declared “the debate over the merits of this law has been settled. The success of the program has been conclusively proven by the events of this past week. There is no longer any need for further discussion. I am instructing the FCC to monitor all media outlets that are licensed through this agency for compliance with my directive. Any unwarranted excursions into disputation or reporting that is intended to reflect negatively on the program or to...

In March 2013, Anthony Brasfield released a dozen heart-shaped balloons in the air as a romantic gesture for his girlfriend. After a Florida Highway Patrol officer spotted the gesture, Brasfield was charged with polluting to harm humans, animals and plants—a third degree felony punishable by up to five years in prison. While some criminal laws and sanctions are necessary to protect safety and ensure justice, America’s criminal code includes many activities that Americans and business owners have little way of knowing are crimes. As a result, law-abiding individuals and businesses spend innumerable hours and dollars fending off criminal prosecution for...