Free Republic

Reid and his oldest son, Rory, are both involved in an effort by a Chinese energy giant, ENN Energy Group, to build a $5 billion solar farm and panel manufacturing plant in the southern Nevada desert. Reid has been one of the project's most prominent advocates, helping recruit the company during a 2011 trip to China and applying his political muscle on behalf of the project in Nevada. His son, a lawyer with a prominent Las Vegas firm that is representing ENN, helped it locate a 9,000-acre (3,600-hectare) desert site that it is buying well below appraised value from Clark...

When Eric Holder became attorney general in 2009, he declared that when it comes to discussing race, we have become “a nation of cowards.” Now there’s plenty of discussion of race, some of it swirling around Holder himself. In recent days, conservative critics have accused Holder of playing the race card to deflect criticism—while his liberal allies believe some of that criticism is racially motivated. It reflects a classic cultural divide in this country and in the media establishment. Just days ago, I was questioning whether New York Magazine went too far in proclaiming that everything about the Obama presidency...

As a family in Clark County, Nev. continues to face an onslaught of heavily armed federal agents determined to kick them off of their ranch, reports have surfaced that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid might be behind the entire ordeal. The ranch, which has been in Cliven Bundy’s family for more than a century, is ground zero for a growing showdown between federal authorities and individual rights activists. Despite attempting to silence protesters by limiting them to so-called “First Amendment areas,” law enforcement personnel, legislators, and militia members are heading to the site in droves to express their outrage over...

The Bureau of Land Management, whose Director was Sen. Harry Reid’s (D-Nev.) former senior adviser, has purged documents from its web site stating that the agency wants Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy’s cattle off of the land his family has worked for over 140 years in order to make way for solar panel power stations. Corrupt Democratic Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.) working with the Chinese gov’t to take land from hard-working Americans. Deleted from BLM.gov but reposted for posterity by the Free Republic, the BLM document entitled “Cattle Trespass Impacts” directly states that Bundy’s cattle “impacts” solar development, more specifically the construction of...

April 9, 2014 Elijah Cummings owed IRS $30,000 in back taxes Jeff Quinton In light of the most recent revelations about Elijah Cummings and the IRS, I thought it would be interesting to discuss Cummings and his past history with the IRS.In 1999, David Folkenflik of The Baltimore Sun wrote an article on Cummings and his financial problems.From that 1999 article (emphasis added): Among his most serious troubles:In the mid-1990s, the Internal Revenue Service filed court papers declaring that Cummings was legally obliged to pay more than $30,000 in unpaid federal taxes. He finished paying those taxes earlier this year.Cummings...

"I have been proud to stand along side of you in supporting efforts to advance the cause of justice that has always been at the center of this , this administrations work I am pleased to note that the last five years have been defined by significant strides and lasting reforms, even in the face, even in the face, of unprecedented, unwarranted ugly adversity. And if you don't believe that, you look at the way ...forget about me... forget about me , you look at the way the Attorney General of the Untied States was treated yesterday by a House...

The U.S. House Oversight Committee today released emails between the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and Democrat Minority Leader Elijah Cummings of the same committee detailing joint attempts to collect non-public information from True the Vote. According to the release obtained by Breitbart Texas, House Oversight offered glimpses into coordinated fishing attempts for information: Five days after Cummings contacted True the Vote seeking “copies of all training materials used for volunteers, affiliates, or other entities,” the IRS sent True the Vote a letter requesting True the Vote provide “a copy of [True the Vote’s] volunteer registration form,” “…the process you use...

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.

Chicago police did not report about a quarter of the aggravated assault and aggravated battery victims in its crime statistics in 2012, an audit by the city's top watchdog found. The department failed to follow state guidelines by counting each aggravated assault or battery as one incident, not each victim as it should have, leading to the underreporting because of all the incidents that involved multiple victims, according to the inspector general's office. The department said it has reported aggravated assaults and aggravated batteries in this way for many years, meaning Chicago's statistics on these crimes — including nonfatal shootings...

State elections officials in North Carolina are investigating hundreds of cases of potential voter fraud after identifying thousands of registered voters with personal information matching those of voters who voted in other states in 2012. The cross-check found listings for 35,570 North Carolina voters whose first names, last names and dates of birth match those of voters who voted in other states.

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.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is at the center of a growing political controversy after it was revealed Thursday that more payments from his campaign funds had been made to his granddaughter than previously reported. The Nevada Democrat promised earlier this week to reimburse $16,787 his campaign gave to Ryan Elisabeth Reid in 2013 for what was described as payments for “holiday gifts.” Those payments were reportedly made to purchase items from Ryan Elisabeth Reid, who has her own line of jewelry. Reid defended the payments, saying they complied with Federal Election Commission standards that allow the purchase of goods...

Video at link.

(CNSNews.com) - The Department of Justice said in a letter sent this month to Sen. Ted Cruz (R.-Texas) that Attorney General Eric Holder has determined that his department has no “conflict of interest” in investigating the Internal Revenue Service’s targeting of Tea Party and conservative groups and that Holder, therefore, will not name a special prosecutor in the case. The department’s letter responded to one Cruz sent Holder on January 22. In that letter, Cruz cited a report in The Washington Post indicating that the department lawyer overseeing the IRS investigation had made political contributions to President Obama and the...

The woman who admitted to voting for President Barack Obama six times worked for and sat on the board of a group that received an Obama administration Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) grant. Melowese Richardson admitted in 2013 to voting six times for Obama’s re-election while working as a poll worker in Hamilton County, Ohio. Initially convicted on state voter fraud charges and sentenced to five years in prison, Richardson served eight months before the George Soros-funded Ohio Justice and Policy Center helped lessen her sentence to probation. Richardson appeared last week at a rally with some Ohio Democrats and Al...

The Center for Competitive Politics created this working timeline of events surrounding the IRS scandal. A PDF version of the working timeline is here.

It was a lot of hot air about a lot of hot air. Democrats took to the Senate floor Monday night to talk about global warming and did not let up until morning.

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) official who apologized for targeting conservative nonprofit groups for extra scrutiny is married to an attorney whose firm hosted a voter registration organizing event for the Obama presidential campaign, praised President Obama’s policy work, and had one of its partners appointed by Obama to a key ambassadorship. IRS Exempt Organizations Division director Lois G. Lerner, who has been described as “apolitical” in mainstream press coverage of the IRS scandal, is married to tax attorney Michael R. Miles, a partner at the law firm Sutherland Asbill & Brennan. The firm is based in Atlanta but has...

Citizens who flout the Internal Revenue Service face the prospect of jail, but when the IRS flouts the law, it’s business as usual. The case of Christine O’Donnell, former Delaware candidate for U.S. senator, highlights the continuing abuses by the sprawling agency charged with collecting our taxes. Before running, O’Donnell had heard that if she chose to run in 2010 for the U.S. Senate against former Delaware governor Mike Castle, the IRS and others would “F— with her head,” in the words of a top Delaware political insider. In short order, someone accessed O’Donnell’s tax return information containing private financial...

As an enthusiastic fan of Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX), I am sorry that an ongoing project prevented me from participating in PJM’s Cruz symposium. But this relevant news just came over the transom, so I thought I’d at least pass it along. As I’ve previously noted, Obama administration officials have been working the codify in federal law the IRS harassment and obstruction of conservative organizations that President Obama and Attorney General Holder claimed to find “intolerable,” “inexcusable,” “outrageous,” and “unacceptable” back when the scandal first came to light. As usual, it has been Senator Cruz leading the charge to try...