Free Republic

A House committee voted Thursday to hold Lois Lerner in contempt of Congress, as Republicans escalated their bid to "get to the bottom" of the former IRS official's role in the political targeting scandal. The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee voted 21-12 to hold Lerner in contempt. The party-line vote followed hours of heated debate on the committee. The contempt measure heads next to the House floor. House Speaker John Boehner predicted earlier this week that unless Lerner agrees to cooperate, the full House will support contempt -- from there, the case would likely head to the courts. "This...

Washington superlawyer Cleta Mitchell represents True the Vote, one of the groups illegally targeted by the IRS in the scandals that have exposed the agency as a partisan operation. True the Vote’s Catherine Engelbrecht has been harassed by federal law enforcement authorities representing three different federal agencies. They represent the price of politics in the Age of Obama. As John notes below, yesterday the House Government Oversight and Reform Committee released emails that show Democratic staffers communicating with the IRS about True the Vote. It appears that Elijah Cummings, the committee’s ranking Democrat and therefore the Congressman to whom these...

Mary Barra, CEO of General Motors, was called before Senate and House Committees last week to explain why a faulty ignition switch, responsible for at least 13 crash deaths, was not recalled for several years in vehicles manufactured by GM. Barra, who served as Executive Vice President for Global Product Development, Purchasing and Supply Chain until January, told members of Congress that she had no knowledge of the switch problem prior to the recent recalls. Members of Congress were left frustrated. Neither Barra nor federal regulators provided good answers as to why the vehicles were not recalled sooner and the...

Wind Shield radar to be carried into enemy territory, track the sources of incoming rocket, missile and mortar fire.

Money causes corruption in politics the way guns cause crime and cake causes obesity. Money isn’t corrupt, it’s just money; politicians taking money in exchange for favors is corrupt. Rewarding donors for their support is corrupt: See Solyndra for an example. But Democrats, the political party that raised and spent a billion dollars in the last two presidential elections, want people to think that two brothers, Charles and David Koch, are attempting to buy Congress. Sadly, with the media on their side and their voters’ serial incuriosity on matters of truth, many believe it. No one has been more vocal...

"GOP Rep: Obama Administration's OSHA Targeting Non-Union Plants with Inspectors Accompanied by Union Reps" On Wednesday’s “On the Record” on the Fox News Channel, Rep. Martha Roby (R-AL) laid out an argument that this administration is using the inspection powers of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) to target non-union plants in South at far more disproportionate rate than anywhere else in the country. She added that also these OSHA inspectors were being accompanied by union representatives to non-union shops.

New IRS emails released by the House Oversight Committee show staff working for Democratic Ranking Member Elijah Cummings communicated with the IRS multiple times between 2012 and 2013 about voter fraud prevention group True the Vote.

Madison — A federal judge kept alive a lawsuit Tuesday attempting to throw out a long-running secret investigation of fundraising and spending by conservative groups during Wisconsin's recent recall elections. Milwaukee County District Attorney John Chisholm and others have been looking into whether the Wisconsin Club for Growth or others illegally coordinated with any candidates during the recalls. In the most prominent race, Gov. Scott Walker in June 2012 became the first governor in the country's history to survive a recall election. The Club for Growth and one of its directors, Eric O'Keefe, in February sued prosecutors, investigators and the...

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 …

Corruption: A House panel votes this week to formally ask the DOJ to pursue criminal charges against former IRS employee Lois Lerner. It is time someone in this administration were held accountable for something. A staff report by House Oversight Committee chairman Darrell Issa reveals testimony by IRS agents that the IRS has not deliberately targeted progressive groups. Now comes word that the House Ways and Means Committee is sending a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder accusing former IRS director of tax-exempt organizations Lois Lerner of committing at least three crimes in the IRS's targeting tea party and other...

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has found himself slowly sinking into the political quicksand as he faces close public scrutiny over potentially enriching family members through his powerful position as a Democratic leader. The Nevada senator has recently become embroiled in the embarrassing controversy surrounding the $31,268 that his campaign paid to his granddaughter Ryan Elisabeth Reid for the purchase of gift items from her jewelry line, according to Politico. But his weakness for pulling strings to help family members was first exposed by the Los Angeles Times a decade ago when a Nevada land bill proposed by Reid appeared...

A week ago, Cardinal Angelo Bagnasco, head of the Italian Episcopal Conference, defended the Vatican’s policy of not requiring clergy to report child sex abuse to the authorities. “The Vatican requires national laws to be respected, and we know that there is no such duty (to report abuse) under Italian law,” he told reporters. It was a disappointment because Pope Francis had just appointed a commission to advise him on sex-abuse policy. Bagnasco’s comments sounded like business as usual.

Claims of widespread child sex abuse at four Christian Brothers-run WA boarding schools will be investigated as part of a nationwide inquiry. The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse will hold its first WA public hearing at the end of this month. It will hear from dozens of former boarders who spent time as young boys at Castledare Junior Orphanage in Wilson, St Vincent’s Orphanage in Clontarf, St Mary’s Agricultural School in Tardun, and Bindoon Farm School.

<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>

(Reuters) - Prime Minister David Cameron's handling of an expenses scandal engulfing one of his ministers has put him under pressure before European elections, threatening his Conservative party's already clouded electoral outlook. Cameron, whose party risks being beaten into third place in next month's European Parliament elections behind the anti-EU UK Independence party (UKIP), has stood by Maria Miller, Britain's minister for culture, since a parliamentary report ordered her to pay back wrongly claimed expenses last week. But the media and public backlash against Miller shows no sign of abating despite Cameron's efforts to end it. Many of his own...

Power Struggle: CFPB Director Richard Cordray has snubbed yet another congressional request to disclose information about the shady methods he's using to investigate auto lenders for discrimination. Early last month, House Financial Services Committee Chairman Jeb Hensarling formally asked Cordray to explain how it is he can sue Ally Bank and other car lenders for policies that allegedly have a "disparate impact" on minorities when the industry doesn't even ID borrowers by race and investigators would have to guess their minority status. Then Hensarling pressed him for the metric he's using to determine a "statistically significant disparity" in loan pricing...

Republican senator Mike Lee has an op-ed decrying cronyism. But first, he says, the Republicans must purge the unseemly activity from within its "own ranks." "[T]o fix what’s broken in Washington and our economy," Lee writes in National Review Online, "a still-distrusted GOP first must end cronyism in our own ranks. The GOP has to close its branch of the Beltway Favor Bank and truly embrace a free-enterprise economy of, by, and for the people." Lee continues: Impossible? That’s what they said about earmarks. Too radical a change? These are principles we already espouse. Imagine a reformed Republican party seizing...

According to its website, the Associated Press is one of the “…most trusted sources of independent news gathering.” AP journalists operate “…in more than 280 locations worldwide, including every statehouse in the U.S.” AP employees have won 51 Pulitzer prizes. The AP proudly announces that its journalists “…have gone to great lengths, overcome obstacles and, too often, sacrificed to ensure that the news has been reported quickly, accurately and honestly.” Most importantly, the AP claims that the organization “…fights for freedom of the press and the public’s right to know.” (my italics) On March 26th, the Washington Post published an...

Former U.S. Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. has been moved from a federal prison in North Carolina to a minimum-security prison camp in Montgomery, Ala., after clashing with prison officials and being placed in solitary confinement, a source told the Chicago Sun-Times. The 49-year-old former Chicago congressman had been advising other inmates in North Carolina about their rights in prison, according to the source, who said a guard took exception to that. As a result, the longtime South Side politician was placed in solitary confinement for four or five days more than a month ago, the source said. It took about...

Attorney General Eric Holder disputed a Government Accountability Office report on his use of Justice Department airplanes for personal trips, saying it overstated the number of trips he took and failed to recognize that some trips were job-related.