Free Republic

The watchdog who exposed the IRS' targeting of conservative groups testified Monday that nobody in the Ohio office being blamed for the scandal would tell his investigators who directed the program, as the new IRS chief vowed to "get to the bottom" of that growing question. Nearly a month after the scandal broke, the issue of who directed agents in Cincinnati to single out Tea Party and other groups is perhaps the most glaring unanswered question. Inspector General J. Russell George, at a House appropriations subcommittee hearing, revealed Monday that his audit of the agency tried -- unsuccessfully -- to...

This story is going around the usual circles, but there are a few things wrong with it. First of all Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was actually arrested by an MBTA SWAT Team. The FBI tried to negotiate his surrender and he was eventually taken into federal custody. Considering how many people were involved in the actual arrest and how many agencies got involved, we’re talking about a lot of personnel that were in some way around. Special Agents Christopher Lorek and Stephen Shaw were members of a hostage rescue team. I’m having trouble finding any legitimate news sites, not counting the usual...

There were multiple reported sightings of agents with the Department of Homeland Security at several Tea Party-led IRS protests in states like Missouri, Florida, Illinois and Indiana. The rallies that occurred across the country on Tuesday were sparked by the IRS’ unfair targeting of conservative groups — one of the several scandals the Obama administration is dealing with. What is unclear though is why federal officials felt the Tea Party presence required more than the attention of local law enforcement. These photos, one showing “armed” DHS guards, were reportedly taken at the St. Louis IRS protest:

Here they come: Migrants bound for the U.S. border ride on top of a train in Ixtepec, in Oaxaca, southern Mexico (AP).- For months, Stand With Arizona has been reporting (most recently here, here and here) on the massive increase in border crossings since Obama and the 'Gang of Eight' started promising amnesty for millions of illegal aliens. And I have been interviewed by two dozen media outlets from the Washington Post and L.A. Times to CNN and even FoxNews. Each time I begged them to report the truth about what border agents were telling me - that a tidal...

Transportation Security Administration officers “humiliated” a Marine who lost both legs to an Improvised Explosive Device by requiring the wheelchair-bound Marine to stand and walk. They also had him remove both his prosthetic legs, according to a letter from Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-California). In his complaint to TSA Administrator John Pistole, Hunter described the Marine as being “humiliated” by the TSA’s actions, based on accounts of the incident last week in Phoenix, Arizona. “The individual escorting this Marine asked the TSA officer which of the two checkpoints to enter and received the response, ‘either one,’ only to be told moments...

Newsmax Toddler TSA Incident: Girl in Wheelchair Cries During Search Friday, February 22, 2013 10:55 AM By: Michael Mullins VIDEO A wheelchair-bound 3-year-old girl on her way to Disney World became distraught when she was patted down by a Transportation Security Administration agent apparently looking for explosives. The Feb. 9 incident at the Lambert-St. Louis International Airport was partially captured on a cell phone video. It shows the toddler, Lucy Forck, of Osage Beach, Mo., crying, "I don’t want to go to Disney World," as a female TSA agent hovers behind her, instructing the girl's mother to put away her...

F.B.I. Counterterrorism Agents Monitored Occupy Movement, Records ShowBy MICHAEL S. SCHMIDT and COLIN MOYNIHAN Published: December 24, 2012 WASHINGTON — The Federal Bureau of Investigation used counterterrorism agents to investigate the Occupy Wall Street movement, including its communications and planning, according to newly disclosed agency records. **SNIP** In the following months, F.B.I. personnel around the country were routinely involved in exchanging information about the movement with businesses, local law-enforcement agencies and universities. An October 2011 memo from the bureau’s Jacksonville, Fla., field office was titled Domain Program Management Domestic Terrorist. The memo said agents discussed “past and upcoming meetings” of...

Top ATF officials involved in Operation Fast and Furious had their government security clearances revoked and others were fired, demoted, or transferred. Former ATF Special Agent in Charge of the Phoenix Field Division Bill Newell, former ATF Special Agent in Charge of Operations in the West Bill McMahon, and former Assistant Special Agent in Charge of the Phoenix Field Division George Gillett were fired. Former Assistant Special Agent in Charge Jim Needles and Field Supervisor David Voth were demoted. Lead case agent Hope McAllister was placed on leave and transferred out of Phoenix. Agent Voth was the subject of Fortune...

Despite repeated, self-serving claims by Obama officials that the Administration did everything it could to head off and then respond appropriately to the violence against American facilities in Libya and Egypt last week, their blunders in policy, intelligence and security illustrates an incompetence every bit as profound as exhibited by the administration of Jimmy Carter in Iran 33 years ago. It appears nothing has been learned in more than three decades; despite significant gains in technology available to the U.S. government during those intervening years. In 1979, the Carter Administration precipitously abandoned the Shah of Iran, Washington’s long-time and loyal...

On August 23, 2012, a group of 10 ICE agents and officers, led by ICE Council president Chris Crane, filed suit against DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano and ICE Director John Morton seeking an injunction against the Napolitano Directive of June 15, 2012. FOX News broke the story shortly after 12 p.m. on Thursday. The lawsuit has been filed in the District Court for the Northern District of Texas, which is in the 5th Circuit. Kris Kobach is representing the agents and officers, and NumbersUSA is financing the effort. The complaint asserts, and NumbersUSA agrees, that the DREAM Directive: Orders federal...

Tell on Me: The ballad of US agents A song to the Leaker-in-Chief from America's friends, based on the immortal song of Ben E. King, "Stand by Me." Produced by Latma, Israel's premiere satire group

Last night, President Obama appeared on Jimmy Fallon’s unwatchable late-night show – a show most notable for Fallon’s almost-incredible inability to keep a straight face while telling the world’s least funny jokes – to discuss the Secret Service prostitution scandal. “The Secret Service, these guys are incredible,” Obama said. “They protect me, they protect our girls. A couple of knuckleheads shouldn’t detract from what they do. What they were thinking, I don’t know. That’s why they’re not there anymore.” But the Secret Service agents in question don’t need Obama’s help in their defense.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Twenty or 21 women were brought back to the hotel in Colombia by U.S. Secret Service agents and members of the U.S. military in an incident last week involving alleged misconduct with prostitutes, U.S. Senator Susan Collins said on Tuesday. Collins was briefed by the director of the Secret Service, Mark Sullivan, on Monday evening. "There are 11 agents involved. Twenty or 21 women foreign nationals were brought to the hotel, but allegedly Marines were involved with the rest," the Republican senator said in comments emailed to Reuters by her spokesman. (Reporting By Susan Cornwell; Editing by...

While we’re on the subject of the Muslim Brotherhood, this February 16 report from Steve Emerson at the Investigative Project on Terrorism will be an eye-opener. As I mentioned in my column over the weekend, the FBI — following the administration’s lead — is purging its training materials of publications that are deemed offensive to Muslims (you know, crazy stuff like claims that passages in the Koran and Hadith promote violent jihad, Islamic supremacism, killing of apostates, oppression of women, etc.). So what are the criteria the Bureau uses to figure out what materials are offensive? And who decides? You’ll...

ICE Long Beach shootout: As immigration cauldron boils, ICE agents buckle The Long Beach, Calif., shooting that left one Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent dead and another wounded comes as the Obama administration has moved to improve morale among embattled ICE agents. By Patrik Jonsson, Staff writer / February 18, 2012 ATLANTA The internecine shootout that ended with one Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent dead and another critically wounded in Long Beach, Calif., on Thursday comes on the heels of an Obama administration effort to relieve dysfunction and morale problems within a frontline agency tasked with enforcing the nation's border...

Three immigration officers were involved in a shootout at the Long Beach Federal Building Thursday evening, police said. Two officers were pronounced dead at the scene and a third was sent to a nearby hospital, according to aerial communications from Long Beach Police. The third victim, repeatedly referred to as a man, was reportedly shot in the upper body. He is being treated at St. Mary's Medical Center, and his vital signs were positive, said Francine Marlenee, speaking on behalf of the hospital. One of the agents is believed to be the suspected gunman, police said. But the suspect's condition...

Border Patrol agent Brian Terry’s family broke its silence on Wednesday, and is now calling on Attorney General Eric Holder to admit he’s at fault for Operation Fast and Furious. Terry was murdered with Operation Fast and Furious weapons on December 15, 2010 — nearly a year ago — and Holder refused to apologize to his family during his Senate Judiciary Committee appearance on Tuesday. “Mr. Holder needs to own Operation Fast and Furious,” Terry’s family said in a statement. “In the end, Mr. Holder may chose not to apologize to the Terry family for the role that ATF and...

Forty two years ago, Oakland mayor-to-be Jean Quan was a U.C. Berkeley student-activist rallying for a movement dubbed the Third World Liberation Front of 1969. That movement would later give birth to the university's Ethnic Studies Department and influence universities across the country to integrate such a unique discipline. The department studies represent the history and experiences of marginalized people, especially people of color. Quan went on to become many things: union organizer, Oakland Board of Education member, Oakland City Council member, Chabot Space & Science Center board chair. As she tells on her own website jeanquan.org, in the beginning...

(excerpted) Authorities had been collecting marijuana plants on Round Mountain at the end of Rabbit Lane, according to a sheriff's report. "We could hear the rounds pass by and hit," Fontes said. Officers initially thought the shots came from the growers, Fontes said, but later discovered it was Speyrer who lived in a nearby home. According to the report, when officers noticed Spreyer in the area, they approached her and ordered her to get on the ground. Here's what the report states happened next: "Why do I have to get on the ground," the senior asked. "You shot at us,"...

Multiple sources have confirmed the fact that all three individuals arrested – James Stewart, Victoria Bloch and Sharon Palmer – are being charged with ‘conspiracy’ related to the sell of unpasteurized raw milk products. This reportedly includes sections of the California Penal Code Section 182a. Additional charges may also be pending, including a charge of ‘mislabeling cheese’ for Sharon Palmer, was arrested during a raid of Healthy Family Farms. As video of the raid on Rawesome Foods (also raided in 2010) demonstrates, Feds not only seized cash and raw milk supplies (much of which was also dumped out) but also...

ATF field agents working in Mexico broke ranks with their supervisors Tuesday during a rancorous five-hour House committee hearing, saying they were kept in the dark about a controversial undercover operation in which hundreds of guns ended up in the hands of Mexican drug cartels. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives agent Carlos Canino, the ATF acting attache to Mexico; Darren Gil, former attache; and Jose Wall, senior agent in Tijuana, told the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee they had serious concerns about the alarming rate of guns found in violent crimes in Mexico whose source was “Operation...

In the wake of the recent memo from the Obama administration which announced “prosecutorial discretion” in dealing with illegal aliens, Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents across the country have been speaking out what many of them are calling a “backdoor amnesty.” On Wednesday, ICE Union president Chris Crane told PRNewswire: “Any American concerned about immigration needs to brace themselves for what's coming. This is just one of many new ICE policies in queue aimed at stopping the enforcement of U.S. immigration laws in the United States. Unable to pass its immigration agenda through legislation, the Administration is now implementing it...

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said Wednesday that Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry and his fellow agents were not under orders to refrain from using lethal force in the gunbattle that led to Agent Terry’s death in December. Testifying to the Senate Judiciary Committee, Miss Napolitano said agents are allowed to use lethal force “if you are under threat of serious injury or death.” She said she herself has asked if the agents involved in the December shootout with bandits on the border in Arizona had their hands tied by orders, and she said the answer is “absolutely not.

The United States will discuss the idea of US armed agents operating inside Mexico, which is being rocked by deadly drug violence, when President Barack Obama meets his Mexican counterpart Felipe Calderon, a senior US official said Wednesday. Obama welcomes Calderon to the White House on Thursday. "It's a top priority for the US government to ensure that measures are being taken to protect our personnel," the official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told journalists in a phone briefing. "That will continue to be a topic of conversation between both governments and will undoubtedly be a topic that gets discussed...

Americans A-OK with TSA? Don’t bet on it December 1, 2010 BY JACOB SULLUM jsullum@reason.com According to the Transportation Security Administration, Americans have no problem with the new airport screening procedures. So they should stop complaining. That self-contradictory reassurance, which would be unnecessary if it were true, seemed slightly more plausible after chaos failed to ensue from protests by Thanksgiving travelers who refused to walk through the TSA’s full-body scanners last week. But there are reasons to question the TSA’s portrait of placid passengers happily baring all for the sake of homeland security. First of all, the TSA’s numbers are...

Amidst all of the criticism of the Transportation Security Administration over its implementation of President Obama's plans for invasive image scanners or pat-down procedures that involve touching airline passengers' private parts an inspector general's report has been released blasting the training procedures for the agents. "At one airport. TSA officials allow TSOs to bypass the use of the Online Learning Center and provided little time for training because of staffing challenges," said the newly released report. "One lead TSO indicated that he had not accssed the Online Learning Center since 2005." The report, dated October 2010 and released just a...

As nearly 2 million holiday travellers pack Bay Area airports starting Friday, local prosecutors have a warning for overzealous security agents performing the new federal pat-down: touch passengers the wrong way, and we’ll throw you in jail. Although authorities in San Mateo and Santa Clara counties said they have not received any criminal complaints since the pat-downs began this month, the searches can involve touching of the genital and breast areas, which critics say is akin to sexual assault. The Transportation Security Administration says the pat-downs are rare and most commonly used when travellers opt not to travel through the...

SAN MATEO COUNTY, Calif. (KGO) -- The San Mateo district attorney's office has a warning for all TSA personnel at SFO -- anyone inappropriately touching a passenger during a security pat down will be prosecuted.

Chapter 1Chapter 2Prepare yourself for a surprise ending. Do that now to avoid confusion later. Around 1990, I met with an industrial engineering professor who had been working for years with artificial intelligence technology. We had a long chat about the possibility of completely automated factories. This was still a decade before frequent online purchasing and customer management systems. But it seemed reasonable to contemplate a future in which everything from initial customer contact, sales, accounting, instructions to the factory floor, robotic manufacturing on demand, packaging, right out to the shipping dock would be fully automated. Even if you've never...

The importance of issue #1. Configuration Files and Processing should not be underestimated. The configuration system is used to attach application components to the generic HLL processing system. It makes sense to create a powerful configuration system that is easy for application developers to use and quite flexible so that it does not impede creative development. And when the project begins building tools to further simplify the development process, they will (in part) simplify the construction of configuration files that, in effect, define HLL applications. A powerful configuration processing system will facilitate powerful but easy to use tools. (For...

Boston City Councilor Chuck Turner was convicted today in a federal court in Boston on charges that he pocketed a $1,000 bribe in his district office in 2007 and later lied about it to federal agents who were interviewing him. A US District Court jury delivered its verdict this afternoon, just a few hours into its first full day of deliberations, finding Turner guilty of attempted extortion and providing false statements to FBI agents.

I will never forget the first time I paid a player. There are moments you will always remember, like your first kiss or your first home run or the day you met your wife. For me, the first time I broke an NCAA rule to try to land a client is just as indelible. It was before the 1990 football season, and I flew from Los Angeles to Denver and drove to the University of Colorado to try to meet with Kanavis McGhee. He was a big, pass-rushing linebacker who was expected to be a high pick in the 1991...

Today in Rabbis Say the Darndest Things, Ari Schvat ruled that female Mossad agents may engage in “honey-pot sex”—I had never heard the phrase before either—as part of their missions. Which is to say, they can sleep with men as part of their espionage. Among other things, Schvat cited Biblical precedent: Esther slept with the Persian king to save the Jews (though weren’t they married anyway?), and apparently Yael slept with the enemy of her husband in order to tire him out so that his head could be more easily chopped off (Book of Judges, yo).

INTERNAL REVENUE AGENT GS-0512-GS-5/7/9/11

Wouldn't it be nice if a comment on Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) would attract a lot of attention (for my blog, I'm thinking)? Thousands of people googling 'SOA' come right to my site and find out more about HLL. I can't expect that, because I'm provoked on this occasion to comment in response to a discussion that started in January of last year. VP and Research Director of The Burton Group, Anne Thomas Manes wrote an article entitled, SOA is Dead; Long Live Services. Burton Group surveys IT R&D and provides business consulting services. They have a particular interest...

IntroductionAn application programmer spends six months perfecting a set of components commonly needed in the large company that employs him. Some of the components were particularly tricky and key pieces required very high quality, reliable and complex exception handling. It has all been tuned to run quickly and efficiently. Thorough testing has demonstrated his success. Part of his idea of “perfection” was to build in a way that the software, even many of the individual components, could easily be reused. But it is surprisingly likely that no one outside of a small group within the project will ever hear of...

Four (4) North Koreans attempted to sneak into the USA from Mexico our southern border, but were apprehended. The four necessarily are intelligence operatives, for NO North Korean citizens travel freely or without the sanction and close watch and instruction of the Korean Workers Party and the intelligence apparatus of North Korea; only diplomats and those under control of the KWP are allowed overseas travel, passports (in this case to get to Mexico), etc..North Korean refugees fleeing Kimilsungist Communism are processed through normal diplomatic and refugee channels.Why has this not been a top issue? What were they attempting to...

I’ve been trying to figure this out … The 14th Amendment declares that anyone born in the US and under its jurisdiction is a citizen. But what about the children of the Russian spies, are they citizens? Those that claim that they are citizens say that the 14th Amendment declares it so and that the only exceptions to U.S. jurisdiction are the children of ambassadors and children of enemies. But these children’s parents did not fall under those exceptions. They were not ambassadors [or have diplomatic immunity], nor is Russia a declared enemy of the U.S. They just did not...

(CNSNews.com) - Internal Revenue Service Commissioner Douglas Shulman said at the National Press Club on Monday that the IRS cannot say how many new agents it will need to enforce the new health care law signed by President Barack Obama last month. The IRS will play a key role in the new national health care system created by the law because it will be responsible for monitoring whether people buy health insurance, as the law mandates, and for collecting a fine from those who fail to buy insurance.

Before President Barack Obama took over the White House, no United States citizen had ever been forced by the federal government to buy a product against their will. But now, thanks to the passage of Obamacare, Americans, by dint of their mere existence, are now required to purchase Obama administration approved health insurance or face a penalty assessed through the Internal Revenue Code. This is simply unprecedented. The income tax doesn’t kick in until an American earns income. Auto liability insurance doesn’t become mandated until an American chooses to drive (and even then it’s only by the state). And farmers...

Top IRS officials have been working with Democrats on Capitol Hill to determine how the agency will enforce President Obama’s new health care law. Republican lawmakers estimate the legislation will require the hiring of many thousands of new tax enforcement agents. While it’s still not known exactly how many will be hired, here’s what’s clear: Under the new law, the IRS is required to fine taxpayers thousands of dollars if they do not purchase health insurance. In order for the government to enforce compliance, tax authorities will need information, for the first time, about people’s health care. Collecting that data...

A personal report. Last night (Wednesday, 11/4/2009) I attended a discussion with former senator Tom Daschle, now advisor on health care to President Obama. The event was held at the Reagan Library in California. What was unique about this event was that the audience was largely comprised of insurance agents who market and service health insurance in California. Also represented at the event were the major insurance companies selling health insurance to Californians, Anthem Blue Cross, Aetna, Kaiser Permanente, Humana, Health Net and others. I am sure that a transcript of the event will be made public, but in general...

Former Secret Service agent opens window into private lives of presidents October 14th, 2009 Jamie Weinstein In his In the President’s Secret Service: Behind the Scenes with Agents in the Line of Fire and the Presidents they Protect, journalist Ronald Kessler gives us a peek inside the intimate lives of our presidents. Through interviews with over 100 secret service agents from the past and present—dating all the way back to John F. Kennedy—Kessler paints a picture of what our presidents are like when no one is looking. They're always watching. We learn from the agents Kessler interviews that John F....

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL * AUGUST 29, 2009, 5:04 A.M. ET Interrogating the CIA By REUEL MARC GERECHT A clever, streetwise classmate of mine at the Central Intelligence Agency's junior officer training program—a former Delta Force officer—quickly and rudely discovered that counterterrorism in the much-vaunted Reagan years wasn't a serious endeavor at Langley. He had original and provocative ideas on using physical force to scare the bejesus out of terrorist suspects who had American blood on their hands. Although the CIA was then filling up with operatives pretending to be engaged against a growing terrorist menace, Langley's counterterrorist data bank...

Posted: 11:44 am EDT August 3, 2009 Updated: 11:56 am EDT August 3, 2009 ORLANDO, Fla. -- Eyewitness News learned that federal agents are raiding a Colonial Bank building on Pine Street late Monday morning. The agents are taking out boxes of documents from the building in downtown Orlando. WFTV.com will update the story as it develops

Fresno, Calif. (AP) -- Federal and state agents have arrested 83 people for growing more than $1.2 billion worth of marijuana in an ongoing crackdown on illegal pot gardens in California's Sierra Nevada range. Local officials said several Mexican marijuana-growing cartels helped set up the grow sites scattered throughout rocky mountainsides of eastern Fresno County, and warned more arrests were likely as the sweep continues. More than 318,000 marijuana plants were destroyed in the operation, which also netted nearly $41,000 in cash, 25 weapons and two vehicles, Fresno County Sheriff Margaret Mims said Thursday.

<p>MEXICO CITY – Mexico has extradited two former U.S. Border Patrol agents accused of taking bribes from migrant smugglers.</p> <p>The U.S. Embassy says Raul Villarreal and Fidel Villarreal allegedly fled to Mexico after they learned U.S. authorities were investigating them in 2006. The brothers were veteran agents in the San Diego area.</p>

Ruben Navarrette Jr.: Border agents' release will not wipe away their crime By Ruben Navarrette Jr. Posted: 01/25/2009 12:00:00 AM PST I was glad to see that George W. Bush commuted the prison sentences of former Border Patrol agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Alonso Compean. And frankly, I was a bit surprised I was glad. I never had much sympathy for Ramos or Compean, disgraced law enforcement officers who were convicted of shooting a Mexican drug smuggler and then lying about it. From studying the facts, hearing the arguments of the agents' supporters, and interviewing U.S. Attorney Johnny Sutton, whose...

Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, made a final plea this week to President George Bush to commute the sentences of jailed U.S. Border Patrol agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean. “Because of the excesses of the prosecution against them, they will continue to sit alone in those cells for another decade,” Cornyn wrote, according to a report in the WorldNetDaily. “That is unless President Bush commutes their unjust sentences. In his remaining days as president, I ask President Bush to show mercy and use his clemency power to give back Agents Ramos and Compean the next 10 years of their lives.”

DANA POINT, Calif. (AP) — Looking ahead to an Obama administration, some baseball agents already are thinking about trying to beat a possible tax increase for their well-paid clients. President-elect Barack Obama has proposed increasing the top federal income tax rate from 35 percent to 39.6 percent, where it was under the Clinton administration. If signing bonuses are paid before Jan. 1, they likely would be taxed at the current rate and would not be subject to any tax increase. "It's something we'll consider," agent Craig Landis said Tuesday at the general managers' meetings. "Besides the federal issue, we have...