Free Republic

"I direct that any additional resources… shall not be used to increase the share of small businesses or households below the $400,000 threshold that are audited relative to historical levels,” Treasury Secretary Yellen wrote to IRS Commissioner Charles Rettig. That directive has been used by media "fact checkers" to deny that the massive increase in IRS personnel under Biden’s Inflation Increase Act will also increase audits of the middle class. Yellen’s statement initially seems reassuring until you look closely at its curious language. Treasury Department spokeswoman Julia Krieger used the same phrasing when claiming that "audit rates relative to historical...

Last June, the Trump-hating reporters who always wanted to underline that then-President Donald Trump was almost traitorously soft on Russia banged a can about a New York Times story headlined "Russia Secretly Offered Afghan Militants Bounties to Kill U.S. Troops, Intelligence Says." Now the liberal Daily Beast website is offering a jaw-dropping assessment: "It was a huge election-time story that prompted cries of treason. But according to a newly disclosed assessment, Donald Trump might have been right to call it a 'hoax.'" This story began with anonymous government sources and is now rebutted by anonymous government sources. "The Biden administration...

BUFFALO, N.Y. (WKBW) — With guns drawn in the middle of a cold winter’s night, home security video captures armed bounty hunters with their fingers on the trigger, pointing a gun at Seneca Babcock resident Jake Reinhardt on his property on Oakdale Place. “Up until that point I thought there was a mistaken address,” he said.” Barefoot and barely clothed, Reinhardt says he was ordered to leave his home. In the surveillance video, you can see him walking out on the porch, visibly shaken. On video, he lets the bounty hunters know his three year old daughter and wife are...

Group tracing quarantine breakers is busier than ever by: Max Rodriguez HONOLULU (KHON2) — Despite having to quarantine for two weeks, more visitors keep arriving in Hawaii, and among them are some who will try to avoid the state’s rules. It is getting harder to keep track of visitors for a group of volunteers who monitor that quarantine orders are being followed. Angela Keen, the Administrator of Hawaii Quarantine Kapu Breakers group, said she is getting reports of people breaking quarantine almost by the hour. Keen said, “Back in March, we had maybe one or two quarantine breaker reports a...

Video shows the moment two bounty hunters cornered a fugitive at a car dealership in Greenville, Texas on Tuesday The bounty hunters, Fidel Garcia Jr and Gabriel Bernal, and the suspect, Ramon Hutchinson, were all killed in the shoot out The video was taken by a bystander on a cellphone camera Hutchinson was wanted on felony charges of disarming a police officer, fourth-degree assault of an officer and felony first-degree narcotics possession Video has emerged showing the deadly shootout between two bounty hunters and the Minnesota fugitive they were pursuing Bounty hunters Fidel Garcia Jr. and Gabriel Bernal were killed...

At the time that America was founded, there were virtually no police departments. Law enforcement was mostly done by ordinary citizens. That was the very idea behind the concept of self-government - duh! The orginal idea behind the second ammendment, is that the people were supposed to be their own police force. As far as I am aware, the right of American citizens to enforce the laws of their country, has never been legally revoked. The excuse that federal immigration authorities give for failure to enforce immigration laws, is that they do not have enough agents. Do ordinary Americans have...

The knock at the door was less a rap than it was an impact, a succession of hinge-rattling concussions. It was 8:30 p.m. on Tuesday, March 3, 2009, and the home’s occupants — 68-year-old Cleo Keeler, her daughter, grandchildren and foster children, some nine in all — sat in stunned silence on what had been a quiet evening. “Who’s there?” A muffled voice answered through the door: “U.S. marshals!” The federal agent was threatening to kick the door down. With choices limited to replacing a splintered door and opening it, someone finally let the man in. But it wasn’t just...

A new federal rewards program dishes out cash to people who turn in friends, relatives and employers for fudging their tax returns. For 24 years Vincent A. Spondello toiled away as an accountant for a group of related companies known as Monex, a large Newport Beach, Calif. precious metals dealer. A trusted employee, he prepared tax returns and was given such tasks as overseeing the destruction of old corporate documents. It turns out that some records that were supposedly destroyed he took home instead. In May Spondello sent 25 boxes of original Monex papers to the Internal Revenue Service--documents that...

A job made famous by the man named "Dog," and a job given a bad wrap by mistakes like the one Wednesday morning on Wichita's west side. A group of bounty hunters chased a man, at speeds up to 120 miles per hour, only to discover they had the wrong guy. "That's not what most of the reputable bail bondsmen do in Wichita, that's not how we run our business," explains Chris Fisher, a licensed bail bondsman. He says he's well aware of the misconceptions people have about what he does - many of which are caused by the work...

Has the GWOT hot war spread to Pakistan? You wouldn't know it if you've listened to the domestic media. While the MSM obsesses with returning the Democrats to power by controlling the news cycle, several news stories have largely gone un-noticed, like so many unconnected dots in this long war against the islamic fascists. For example, Musharref and Bush at a White House State Dinner, which was drowned out by the noise from The Chavez and Amadinajad UN Show. The cease-fire with the Taliban in northern Pakistan, leaks about secret prisons, domestic legislation to clarify the ROE regarding detention and...

Bogotá. The supposed assistance given by Colombian guerrillas to the kidnappers of the daughter of the Paraguayan ex-president is further proof of the international tentacles of the rebels who finance themselves through criminal activities, said Colombia’s Minister of Defense, Jorge Alberto Uribe. "This only confirms the fact that Colombian narcoterrorist groups are not merely Colombians, they have roots and presence in every country", warned Uribe, who was visiting Holland, according to AP. "I was just with the people at Europol – the European police- and I saw four or five cases which involved people from these groups, especially" from the...

A positive outlook of Venezuela's future By Aleksander Boyd London 22.01.05 | Wheels are in motion, cat’s out and shit has hit the fan big time. The stench, emanating from Caracas, can be felt here, in my London W1 cushy pad. A series of seemingly disconnected events have thrust unprecedented levels of criticism upon the Venezuelan ‘president’, which added to the evidence surfaced in each of the instances leave no room for doubt or confusion with respect to the credentials of Hugo Chavez. Allow me to enumerate them: 1) Rodrigo Granda, wanted FARC terrorist, is captured in the streets of...

A dialogue between two important members of the FARC (Colombian revolutionary Armed Forces), appears to be among the evidence submitted by the Colombian authorities to the Venezuelan Government according to Colombia’s Radio Caracol. Here is the translation of the only written report I have seen on the issue, which suggests that more than one hundred members of the FARC guerillas were in Caracas in early December for the II People’s Bolivarian Congress, financed and organized by the Chavez Government.. I had talked to two reporters who had mentioned this to me, but said they could not talk about it and...

"The Government had to choose between war and shame. They chose shame. They will get war too." -Churchill The grotesque Granda case would seem to be the cause of our problem with Venezuela in the same way that the war of independence would have been due to the insolence with which the chapeton refused to lend the flower vase to the party to honor Antonio Villavicencio. ... From the Ministry of Interior and Justice we warned that the key to our relationship with Chavez could be found in the Sao Paulo Forum, and in the communist conspiracy that was being...

Despite new evidence that Venezuela has become a sort of ''Club Med'' for Latin America's violent groups, the Bush administration is unlikely to start its second term taking major steps to isolate leftist-populist President Hugo Chávez. But, eventually, it will probably do so. Judging from what incoming Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told the Senate earlier this week and what I have heard in interviews with well-placed current and former U.S. officials, the U.S. strategy will be to wait until Chávez does something really obnoxious in the eyes of the world, which he probably will.

London 14.01.05 | Hugo Chavez, the greatest pariah ever to govern our nation, has just frozen diplomatic and trade relations with Colombia. The embarrassing thing for us decent Venezuelans is the reason for this breakage, i.e. the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). Rodrigo Granda, FARC leader, was captured in Caracas by bounty hunters, when he was attending, as guest of honour, a Bolivarian celebration organized by the government of Venezuela. The Chavez regime then incurred in a series of mishaps, distortions and outright lies to cover its cosy relationship with the terrorist, who happened to have been naturalized in...

(IsraelNN.com) The American government is offering a $5 million prize for information leading to the capture of the terrorists responsible for the Oct. 2003 bombing attack against a U.S. diplomatic convoy in PA-controlled Gaza that claimed the lives of American security personnel. American officials are angered at the nonfeasance by the PA since the terrorists have not been taken into custody.

Pakistani People’s Alliance With Bin Laden Hampers Capture Q U E T T A, Pakistan, March 12 — A major operation is still under way in southwestern Pakistan as American and Pakistani officials search for Osama bin Laden, but after seeming so close last week, the hunt now looks less promising and the United States is trying a new tactic: bounty hunters. All along Pakistan's fractious border with Afghanistan, the United States has been trying to recruit bounty hunters, and has been dropping leaflets to make sure everyone knows there is a $25 million price on bin Laden's head. There...