Free Republic

When Julie Veilleux discovered she was American, she went to the nearest U.S. embassy to renounce her citizenship. Having lived in Canada since she was a young child, the 48-year-old had no idea she carried the burden of dual citizenship. But the renunciation will not clear away the past 10 years of penalties with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS).Born to American parents living in Canada, Kerry Knoll’s two teenaged daughters had no clue they became dual citizens at birth. (An American parent confers such status on Canadian-born children.) Now the IRS wants to grab at money they earned in Canada...

Overregulation by President Obama and his administration is crippling our nation's economy. By the government's own estimation, the annual cost of regulations is $1.75 trillion. Since taking office, the Obama administration has instituted 75 new major regulations, meaning that each has an expected economic impact of at least $100 million per year. Over a 10-year period, these regulations will cost the private-sector over $400 billion. Keep in mind these are government cost estimates, and we all know how actual costs are often much higher. Additionally, according to a private study by George Washington University, federal outlays for developing and enforcing...

On August 24, 2011, federal agents of the Fish and Wildlife Service raided offices and production facilities of the Gibson Guitar company. They sent workers home and confiscated several pallets of wood along with computer files and numerous guitars (amounting to about $2 million in lost production and property). This was the second raid on Gibson in as many years over questions about some of the wood the legendary guitar makers use in their products. The timing of the latest raid is convenient for the government as they are currently trying to convince a federal judge to indefinitely delay a...

Start rattling the chains. Start ratcheting up the hue and cry. Fire up the masses. It's long past time to force mass resignations at, and possible prosecutions of members of, the Obama Justice Department --and, more broadly, of the West Wing itself. Forgive all the links, but the scope of the corruption is so large as to defy adequate descriptions, in a single column, of each abomination. The reality is that these Obama/Holder minions at DoJ are dangerous to the very heart of constitutional, republican (small 'r') government.

CHICAGO (WLS) - A lot of reaction Wednesday morning to Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky's interview with Don Wade and Roma. Schakowsky said that Americans don't deserve to keep all of their money because we need taxes to support our society. “I’ll put it this way. You don’t deserve to keep all of it and it’s not a question of deserving because what government is, is those things that we decide to do together. And there are many things that we decide to do together like have our national security. Like have police and fire. What about the people that work at...

“Get out of the way.” With this statement, John Galt articulated the simple and necessary policy solution to the disastrous centrally-planned economy in Atlas Shrugged. It’s also sage advice that President Obama should consider before he unveils his latest jobs plan before the Joint Session of Congress tonight. This advice is strikingly prescient as our nation’s economy moves ever-closer to mirroring the calamitous state of affairs that befell society in Rand’s novel. During his two and half years in office, Obama has crushed the labor market with a pro-statist agenda, which includes ObamaCare, the stimulus package, coziness to Big Labor,...

It’s an Obama World. Not only do illegal aliens not have to worry about being caught and deported – they even get billions in tax credits. The Washington Post reported: The Internal Revenue Service allowed undocumented workers to collect $4.2 billion in refundable tax credits last year, a new audit says, almost quadruple the sum five years ago. Although undocumented workers are not eligible for federal benefits, the report released Thursday by the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration concludes that federal law is ambiguous on whether these workers qualify for a tax break based on earned income called the...

The White House is giving free-speech opponents a megaphone. An unprecedented collaboration between the Obama administration and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC, formerly called the Organization of the Islamic Conference) to combat “Islamophobia” may soon result in the delegitimization of freedom of expression as a human right. The administration is taking the lead in an international effort to “implement” a U.N. resolution against religious “stereotyping,” specifically as applied to Islam. To be sure, it argues that the effort should not result in free-speech curbs. However, its partners in the collaboration, the 56 member states of the OIC, have no...

One animating theme of Barack Obama's campaign and early Presidency was that he would repair government's post-Reagan reputation, expanding its role in American life so voters would turn once again to Democrats as the party of government, as they did in 1964 and the 1930s. So how's that working out? Not so well, judging by a remarkable Gallup poll this week that asked the public about its views of government and various businesses. The federal government dropped to its lowest approval levels ever. Only 17% were positive, 63% negative, for a net approval rating of minus-46%. Government never ranks well,...

After wasting three years and more than a trillion dollars of "stimulus" money, the President has announced he has a new plan for creating jobs. The problem is: Government doesn't create jobs that add value to the economy; companies and entrepreneurs do. Through taxes, mandates and regulation the government typically discourages hiring and destroys jobs. What Washington should do right now is step aside. To show how serious he is, the President has enlisted noted labor economist Alan Krueger of Princeton University to head the White House Council of Economic Advisers. Unfortunately, one thing Krueger is known for is his...

The Gibson Guitar saga has taken a sinister turn. It seems that the Department of Justice wasn’t satisfied with merely raiding the law abiding factories of Gibson Guitar with armed agents, shutting down their operation costing them millions, and leaving the American company in the dark as to how to proceed without going out of business. Now, according to CEO Henry Juszkiewicz, agents of the United States government are bluntly informing them that they’d be better off shipping their manufacturing labor overseas.

Big government isn’t just bad because it is so costly. Big government is toxic because it becomes an over reaching nanny state that tries to protect us from ourselves. Eventually, government reaches its tentacles into our lives and curbs our freedom. I am going to see this movie, Farmageddon. I am always interested in the plight of the family farmer. One of the reasons I enjoy going to Europe is to eat their fabulous raw milk cheeses. If you haven’t had one you are missing something. America could have a new vibrant industry of raw milk cheese making if we...

Americans overall tend to trust governments closer to home rather than the federal government and worry that the team in DC has too much influence over state governments. However, Democrats and those who are politically liberal take an entirely different view. A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey shows that 50% of Likely Voters believe the federal government has too much influence over state governments. Just 11% think the federal government does not have enough influence while 26% believe the balance is about right. Thirteen percent (13%) are not sure. (To see survey question wording, click here.) On the question...

Way back in January President Obama ordered "a government-wide review of the rules already on the books to remove outdated regulations that stifle job creation and make our economy less competitive."   From that statement alone, you might conclude that Obama already knew that finding needless, burdensome regulation in the 81,000 pages of the federal register would be easy pickings.  More than seven months later, the Administration has announced the results of that exhaustive review.  By the White House's own undoubtedly inflated estimate, the net benefit will barely be worth one-tenth of one penny of every dollar of expense caused...

New York businessman James Lieto was an innocent bystander in a fraud investigation last year. Federal agents seized $392,000 of his cash anyway. An armored-car firm hired by Mr. Lieto to carry money for his check-cashing company got ensnared in the FBI probe. Agents seized about $19 million—including Mr. Lieto's money—from vaults belonging to the armored-car firm's parent company. He is one among thousands of Americans in recent decades who have had a jarring introduction to the federal system of asset seizure. Some 400 federal statutes—a near-doubling, by one count, since the 1990s—empower the government to take assets from convicted...

If the federal government's regulatory operation were a business, it would be one of the 50 biggest in the country in terms of revenues, and the third largest in terms of employees, with more people working for it than McDonald's, Ford, Disney and Boeing combined. Under President Obama, while the economy is struggling to grow and create jobs, the federal regulatory business is booming.

Nearly two years after ABC News cameras uncovered young children toiling away in Michigan's blueberry fields, federal investigators have found yet another disturbing example of illegal use of child labor in the berry industry. Three southwest Washington strawberry growers were fined $73,000 last week after the U.S. Department of Labor found children between the ages of six and 11 working in their strawberries fields in June. While an exemption in the federal child labor law allows 12- and 13-year-olds to work for unlimited hours on large agricultural operations, children under the age of 12 are strictly prohibited from working under...

FBI_Terrorist_Indicators Oath Keepers Exclusive: An FBI Denver Joint Terrorism Task Force handout being distributed to Colorado military surplus store owners lists the purchase of popular preparedness items and firearms accessories as “suspicious” and “potential indicators of terrorist activities,” instructing store owners to keep records on and report people who: “Make bulk purchase of items to include: Weatherproofed ammunition or match containers Meals Ready to Eat Night Vision Devices; night flashlights; gas masks High capacity magazines Bi-pods or tri-pods for rifles” The FBI handout, entitled “Communities Against Terrorism: Potential Indicators of Terrorist Activities Related to Military Surplus Stores” also instructs surplus...

Main Street Bank lends most of its money to small businesses and is earning decent profits. But the Kingwood, Texas, bank is about to get out of the banking business. In an extreme example of the frustration felt by many bankers as regulators toughen their oversight of the nation's financial institutions, Main Street's chairman, Thomas Depping, is expected to announce Wednesday that the 27-year-old bank will surrender its banking charter and sell its four branches to a nearby bank. Mr. Depping plans to set up a new lender that will operate beyond the reach of banking regulators—and the deposit-insurance safety...

Tractors lumbering down country roads are as common as deer in rural Montana, but the federal government wants to place new driving regulations on farmers and ranchers. “It’s a huge deal for us,” said John Youngberg of the Montana Farm Bureau. After years of allowing state governments to waive commercial driver’s license requirements for farmers hauling crops or driving farm equipment on public roads, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration is poised to do away with the exceptions. Regulators are suggesting that all wheat shipments be considered interstate, even when farmers making short hauls to local grain elevators aren’t crossing...