Free Republic

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. authorities have long cast a wary eye on counterterrorism intelligence from Russia, Obama administration officials say, raising questions about whether a "trust deficit" clouded efforts to determine if Boston Marathon bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev posed a danger. Any intelligence disconnect between the United States and Russia could have broader repercussions, complicating plans to cooperate on security for the 2014 Winter Olympics in the Black Sea resort of Sochi, not far from Russia's restive north Caucasus region. U.S. officials said they consider counterterrorism information emanating from Moscow's bitter conflict with Islamist militants in Chechnya and other parts...

FEMA's vaunted "lean forward" strategy that called for advanced staging of supplies for emergency distribution failed to live up to its billing in the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Sandy. In fact, the agency appears to have been completely unprepared to distribute bottled water to Hurricane Sandy victims when the storm hit this Monday. In contrast to its stated policy, FEMA failed to have any meaningful supplies of bottled water -- or any other supplies, for that matter -- stored in nearby facilities as it had proclaimed it would on its website. This was the case despite several days advance warning...

States that have refused to implement the Obama health law have already blocked $80 billion of its new deficit spending. If more states follow suit, they can block the other $1.6 trillion and force Congress to repeal the law. The law relies on states to implement two of its most essential pieces: health-insurance "exchanges" and a vast expansion of Medicaid. Exchanges are government agencies through which the law channels $800 billion to private health-insurance companies.The Medicaid expansion adds another $900 billion to the federal debt, with private insurers again taking a slice. States are under no obligation either to implement...

RUSH: This is from Rayford, North Carolina. Carolina Journal. I'm gonna read it to you exactly as it printed out here: "A preschooler at West Hoke Elementary School ate three chicken nuggets for lunch Jan. 30 because a state employee told her the lunch her mother packed was not nutritious. The girl’s turkey and cheese sandwich, banana, potato chips and apple juice did not meet US Department of Agriculture guidelines, according to the interpretation of the agent who was inspecting all lunch boxes in her More at Four classroom that day." Again, let me read this to you again: "The...

Richard Mack is well known as the first of eventually six sheriffs to take on the Brady Law. And, much to the delight of pro-gunners around the country, the Supreme Court agreed with Mack in 1995 that the federal government did not have constitutional authority to force state officials to conduct background checks. Mack is no longer in office, but that has not stopped him from staying involved in promoting constitutional issues. He is now taking the lead in informing sheriffs of the authority they have as the chief law enforcement officer in their counties. While this has come as...

Anti-government extremists opposed to taxes and regulations pose a growing threat to local law enforcement officers in the United States, the FBI warned on Monday. These extremists, sometimes known as "sovereign citizens," believe they can live outside any type of government authority, FBI agents said at a news conference. The extremists may refuse to pay taxes, defy government environmental regulations and believe the United States went bankrupt by going off the gold standard.

It turns out Mitt Romney paid $6.2 million in taxes in the latest year between federal and local taxes and I say bravo for him that sounds fair as hell to me. Really, just think for a moment and ask yourself does anyone get $6.2 million a year in services from the government? This past weekend is a perfect example. A nature preserve sits right behind my house, which is great because it's like having a giant backyard with deer, foxes, and occasional eagles. I worry about those giant trees that lean toward the house in such an ominous way...

President Obama will use his election-year State of the Union address on Tuesday to define an activist role for government in promoting a prosperous and equitable society, hoping to draw a stark contrast between the parties in a time of deep economic uncertainty. ...Mr. Obama will call for changing the corporate and individual income-tax codes so the wealthy pay more, both to finance government investments and to alleviate the rise in income inequality in recent years. Republican presidential candidates have countered that government should get out of the way.

WASHINGTON — When the companies that supply motor fuel close the books on 2011, they will pay about $6.8 million in penalties to the Treasury because they failed to mix a special type of biofuel into their gasoline and diesel as required by law. But there was none to be had. Outside a handful of laboratories and workshops, the ingredient, cellulosic biofuel, does not exist. In 2012, the oil companies expect to pay even higher penalties for failing to blend in the fuel, which is made from wood chips or the inedible parts of plants like corncobs. Refiners were required...

Under the National Operations Center (NOC)’s Media Monitoring Initiative that emerged from the Department of Homeland Security in November, Washington has written permission to collect and retain personal information from journalists, news anchors, reporters or anyone who uses “traditional and/or social media in real time to keep their audience situationally aware and informed.” According to DHS, the definition of personal identifiable information can consist of any intellect “that permits the identity of an individual to be directly or indirectly inferred, including any information which is linked or linkable to that individual.”

“I can make a firm pledge. Under my plan, no family making less than $250,000 a year will see any form of tax increase. Not your income tax, not your payroll tax, not your capital gains taxes, not any of your taxes,” President Obama, September 12, 2008 Beginning January 1, 2013, ObamaCare imposes a 3.8% Medicare tax on unearned income of “high-income” taxpayers which could apply to proceeds from the sale of single family homes, townhouses, co-ops, condominiums, and even rental income, depending on your individual circumstances and any capital gains tax exclusions. Importantly, the “high income” thresholds are not...

From time immemorial—from Etienne de la Boitie to David Hume to Ludwig von Mises—political analysts have noted that because the number of those in the ruling elite amounts to only a small fraction of the number in the ruled masses, every regime lives or dies in accordance with “public opinion.” Unless the mass of the people, no matter how objectively abused and plundered they may appear to be, believe that the existing rulers are legitimate, the masses will not tolerate the regime’s continuation in power. Nor need they tolerate it, because they greatly outnumber the

These days, virtually all Republicans call themselves “conservatives” and claim to be dedicated to cutting spending, balancing budgets, reducing debts and limiting government. Most of them are liars. The failure of the super committee this week was but the latest reminder. The super committee was supposed to figure out how to reduce the deficit by $1.2 trillion over 10 years. If it failed, the result was supposed to be $1.2 trillion in “automatic cuts” over the next decade, with about $600 billion of that coming from the defense budget. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said any such cuts would be “devastating”...

Liberal and conservative elites agree on one thing: Americans are too free for their own good. BY A. BARTON HINKLE To outward appearances, it might seem as though the left and right have never been more at odds. And for the average man in the street, drawn to the Tea Party on one side or the Occupy movement on the other, this might be true. But it is not so true for elite opinion. The nation's high and mighty may be divided about many things, but on one point they often agree: Americans are still too darn free.

You have to wonder which hole in the sand Harry Reid has his head buried in.  Yesterday, in comments on the floor of the Senate, the Democrat Leader said the following: "While it's proper to guard against and remove onerous regulations, and we need to do that, my Republican friends have yet to produce a single shred of evidence that the regulations they hate so much do the broad economic harms they claim.  That's because there aren't any."Reid's denial is in large part his poor explanation for denying the Senate even one vote on any of the "Forgotten Fifteen" regulation...

During her October 25th testimony before the House Government Oversight Committee, Department of Homeland Security chief Janet Napolitano claimed she has never spoken about Fast and Furious with Attorney General Eric Holder, had never heard of the deadly scheme prior to the December 2010 killing of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry (as it was an ATF operation) and although head of Homeland Security, considered it unnecessary to learn more about the deliberate SMUGGLING of thousands of weapons into the hands of Mexican drug dealers because there was an investigation being performed by the Inspector General at the Department of Justice....

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- The U.S. Department of Homeland Security's Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) will conduct the first nationwide test of the Emergency Alert System (EAS). The nationwide test will occur on Wednesday, November 9 at 2 p.m. eastern standard time and may last up to three and a half minutes. The EAS is a national alert and warning system established to enable the President of the United States to address the American public during emergencies. NOAA's National Weather Service, governors and state and local emergency authorities also use parts of the system to...

A Wisconsin judge has decided – in a fight over families' access to milk from cows they own – that Americans "do not have a fundamental right to consume the milk from their own cow." The ruling comes from Circuit Court Judge Patrick J. Fiedler in a court fight involving a number of families who owned their own cows, but boarded them on a single farm. The judge said that's a "dairy farm" and is subject to the rules and regulations of the state of Wisconsin. "It's always a surprise when a judge says you don't have the fundamental right...

In the midst of the current economic downturn, there is one group that seems to be prospering: public employees. While the private sector is struggling to grow and create new jobs, federal government jobs are doing quite well. This week’s chart by Mercatus Center Scholar Veronique de Rugy shows the growing number of federal government employees. Using the latest data for annual government employment from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the chart shows that relentless growth in public sector employment largely overshadows private sector employment. In 2010, there were 22,482,000 government employees. That’s an increase of 1,692,000 employees since 2000....

The Obama administration is escalating its crackdown on tough immigration laws, with lawyers reviewing four new state statutes to determine whether the federal government will take the extraordinary step of challenging the measures in court.