Free Republic

Homeland Security reps refuse to name superiors who ordered federal agency to analyze online dissent (PaulWatson) – Representatives from the Department of Homeland Security speaking today at a Congressional hearing regarding the federal agency’s monitoring of social media networks and news websites, including the Drudge Report, were evasive about who ordered them to look for reports or comments that “reflect adversely on the U.S. government and the DHS.” The hearing was prompted as a result of the Electronic Privacy Information Center obtaining 300 documents through a Freedom of Information Act request which detailed how DHS had hired an outside contractor,...

Ever since taking office, President Barack Obama has tried desperately to convince gun owners and sportsmen that he supports the Second Amendment. But actions speak louder than words, and Obama’s latest budget proposal contains numerous sneak attacks aimed at the heart of our firearm freedoms. For example, NRA members and gun owners fought hard for a law to ban government agencies like the Centers for Disease Control from using our tax dollars to produce blatant anti-gun propaganda. Obama wants to kill it in his budget. We fought hard for a law to ban the Obama administration from spending our tax...

In the end of January, the European Commissioner for Justice, Fundamental Rights, and Citizenship, Viviane Reding, said that the Commission proposed a new data protection regulation called “the right to be forgotten.” This rule, though sounding innocuous, is probably the “biggest threat to free speech on the Internet,” as law professor Jeffrey Rosen put it. The right to be forgotten requires social networks, such as Facebook and Google, to comply with the requests of their users and delete items that these individuals have published on the Internet. If the companies refuse the users’ requests, the EU could fine these companies...

Rahm Emanuel does not plan to run for governor of Illinois. Not in 2014. Not ever. His proposal last week to register all Illinois handguns made it obvious. I'm sure that Emanuel, the mayor of Chicago, wouldn't consider taking the step down to governor anyway — not any more than his predecessor, Richard M. Daley. You can be sure that Chicago mayors do see it as a demotion. Only one has ever stooped down to the Governor's Mansion and that was almost a century ago: ex-Mayor Edward Fitzsimmons Dunne served as governor from 1913-17. No wonder. Chicago mayors wield enormous...

No Child Left Behind is an example of why the 'one size fits all' mentality is an improper way to govern. Placing standardizations as well as allocating specific resources at the federal level is not working. Our education system is decaying. With increasing costs and decreasing scores it is clear that reform is necessary to ensure that the future of our nation have the knowledge and skills to compete in a global economy. Chairman Kline of the U.S. House Education and the Workforce Committee is sponsoring two pieces of legislation to address this issue. The two bills reform federal education...

Seeking to overturn a DOJ judgment that its voter photo identification law, passed in May 2011, violates the National Voting Rights Act (NVRA), the state of South Carolina recently announced that it is suing the Justice Department and Attorney General Eric Holder in federal court. The decision by South Carolina comes as the DOJ is vigorously working to stop the spread of states enacting or implementing voter photo ID laws, prompting fears that the Obama administration is undermining the integrity of the upcoming 2012 elections. In December 2011, the DOJ blocked South Carolina’s new voter ID law from taking effect...

After a yearlong fight, House Republicans land a blow against the politicized National Mediation Board (NMB). After assuming office in 2009, President Obama appointed two pro-union members to the three member NMB, the federal agency that oversees union-employer relations in the transportation industry. Effectively controlling the board, Obama’s Democrat appointees rewrote long-held election law to make it easier for unions to organize transportation workers. While the National Labor Relations Board’s nefarious activity has received much publicity, Obama’s regulatory overreach began with the NMB. Since the National Railway Act’s was ratified in 1926, a union needed to receive a majority of...

Many Democrats in the Assembly have not publicly reported the expenditure of thousands of dollars in campaign funds, including money for rent and living expenses during legislative sessions, the Sun has learned. According to multiple lawmakers familiar with internal caucus discussions, the lawyer for Assembly Democrats instructed them that they do not have to report spending on expenses related to their public office — for example, rent in Carson City during the legislative session or travel to professional conferences.

Today, President Obama released his budget for the 2013 Fiscal Year. The spending blueprint mirrors other plans he has put forward during his administration. It keeps spending at unprecedented levels, fails to address the looming entitlement crises and uses budget gimmickry to claim fake savings and unrealistic projections. The budget continues to call for spending at historic levels: the request sets spending for the fiscal year at $3.8 trillion and projects $47 trillion in spending over the next ten years Holds spending at 23 percent of the next ten years, two percent higher than its historical average Uses totally dishonest...

by John HillStand With Arizona The inmates are running the asylum. This Administration has served notice on every illegal alien invader across America: do not be afraid - you are above the law.Eleven illegal aliens who claimed ICE agents "violated their rights" in 2007 raids on their New Haven neighborhood have won a $350,000 settlement from the U.S. government, which also agreed to halt deportation proceedings against the plaintiffs, their attorneys said Tuesday. New Haven is American's most notorious "sanctuary city"- the first in the nation to offer identification cards to illegal immigrants, and critics including the mayor have contended...

In Hawaii, where some of the most repressive gun laws exist, The Hawaii Defense Foundation’s founding director and president, Christopher Baker, has filed suit against the Honolulu Police Chief, the City Council, and the State of Hawaii saying that his Civil and Constitutional rights to firearms have been violated. His application for a concealed handgun carry permit was denied by the Police department because the Police Department, " Did not believe that the reasons...provided did not constitute sufficient justification to issue a permit." Also In Hawaii, a person who wants to buy a handgun must attend a training course on...

Amidst flowery February orations, in retrospect, the Civil Rights movement’s main beneficiary appears to be Washington. State segregation ceased, which is well, but forced federal integration remains, well, wrong. Washington rightly overturned denials of freedom oppressing southern blacks, but did so by infringing on others’ liberties elsewhere. En route, civil rights became the sine qua non of American statism. Civil rights legislation provided the primary catalyst for government’s escalation since WWII. Sadly, the Civil Rights Act brought neither legal equality as proposed in theory; nor equality of outcomes to which the Left strove in practice. The CRA failed doubly. First,...

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...

A mother in Hoke County complains her daughter was forced to eat a school lunch because a government inspector determined her home-made lunch did not meet nutrition requirements. In fact, all of the students in the NC Pre-K program classroom at West Hoke Elementary School in Raeford had to accept a school lunch in addition to their lunches brought from home.

Illinois state Sen. Jeff Schoenberg (D-Evanston) has endorsed Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel's proposal to create a statewide gun registry in order to decrease gun violence, according to a news release issued Friday. Emanuel proposed requiring gun owners to register each handgun in their possession at a fee of $65 per gun. Currently, Chicago's gun control laws ban weapon sales in the city and prohibit people from taking guns out of their homes. For 28 years Chicago banned gun ownership entirely, until the U.S. Supreme Court overturned that policy in June 2010. Prospective Illinois gun owners must obtain a firearm owner's...

Governor Mitt Romney has signed into law a permanent assault weapons ban that he says will make it harder for criminals to get their hands on these guns. 'Deadly assault weapons have no place in Massachusetts," Romney said, at a bill signing ceremony on July 1 with legislators, sportsmen's groups and gun safety advocates. "These guns are not made for recreation or self-defense. They are instruments of destruction with the sole purpose of hunting down and killing people." Like the federal assault weapons ban, the state ban, put in place in 1998, was scheduled to expire in September. The new...

Just days after appearing on the National Geographic TV Show Doomsday Prepper, a prepper from Tennessee has been declared Mentally Defective and his guns have been seized by the government. The Prepper, David Sarti is a character to say the least, but his story is somewhat disturbing and should be a wake up call for everyone. Personally I think these shows are designed to make these people look crazy. Whether his appearance on the show played into Mr. Sarti’s diagnosis isn’t yet clear, but apparently the State believed he was a danger to himself after a local doctor insisted that...

White House Economic Adviser: 'We Need a Global Minimum Tax' Daniel Halper February 13, 2012 2:41 PM Gene Sperling, director of the White House's national economic council, said today at an official meeting that "we need a global minimum tax": “He supports corporate tax reform that would reduce expenditures and loopholes, lower rates for people investing and creating jobs in the U.S., due so further for manufacturing, and that we need to, as we have the Buffett Rule and the individual tax reform, we need a global minimum tax so that people have the assurance that nobody is escaping doing...

The FDA has won its two-year fight to shut down an Amish farmer who was selling fresh, raw milk to eager consumers in the Washington region, after a judge this month banned Daniel Allgyer from selling his milk across state lines, and he told his customers he'll shut his farm down altogether. The decision has enraged Mr. Allgyer's supporters, some of whom have been buying from him for six years and who say the government is interfering with their parental rights to feed their children. But the Food and Drug Administration, which launched a full investigation complete with a 5...

Three West Virginia coal plants just announced they will close this year. Metro News reported: Ohio based FirstEnergy Corporation announces it will close three coal fired power plants in West Virginia by this fall. The closings come directly from the impact of new federal EPA regulations. The plants to close are Albright Power Station, Willow Island Power Station, and the Rivesville Power Station. The company says 105 employees will be directly impacted. The three plants produce 660 megawatts and about 3-percent of FirstEnergy’s total generation. In recent years, the plants served as “peaking facilities” and generated power during times of...

Should religious institutions be able to rent public property just like any other community group? If you’re New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, the answer is a resounding no, a decision that has angered local communities and is poised to kick out dozens churches from meeting in New York City public schools even though other groups, including labor unions, are granted full access. “Houses of worship throughout the city consider this policy to be nothing short of discrimination, and we will make that known,� said Fernando Cabrera, a Democratic city councilman representing the Bronx. “Evicting [churches] hurts people and neighborhoods...

Medical insurance premiums in the United States are on the rise, the chief architect of President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul has told The Daily Caller.Massachusetts Institute of Technology economist Jonathan Gruber, who also devised former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney’s statewide health care reforms, is backtracking on an analysis he provided the White House in support of the 2010 Affordable Care Act, informing officials in three states that the price of insurance premiums will dramatically increase under the reforms. In an email to The Daily Caller, Gruber framed this new reality in terms of the same human self-interest that some...

Congress is demanding drones in the air over the United States - without considering the civil liberties issues. Within the span of three days last week, the House and then the Senate passed a law - H.R. 658 - requiring the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to speed up, within 90 days, its current licensing process for government use of drones domestically and to open the national airspace to drone aircraft for commercial and private use by October 2015. While the law requires the FAA to develop guidance on drone safety, the law says absolutely nothing about the privacy or transparency...

A top official with the National Rifle Association said Friday that President Obama will move to "destroy" gun rights and "erase" the Second Amendment if he is re-elected in November. While delivering one of the liveliest and best-received speeches at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington, NRA Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre said the president's low-key approach to gun rights during his first term was "a "conspiracy to ensure re-election by lulling gun owners to sleep." "All that first term, lip service to gun owners is just part of a massive Obama conspiracy to deceive voters and hide his...

We hear often from drivers who suffer sticker shock when they're pulled over by police and handed a ticket for a moving violation. The actual cost is far more than many drivers had thought it was going to be. Take, for instance, when the state passed its handheld cellphone ban a few years ago. Officials trumpeted the fine as $20. More than a few drivers think: What the heck. Worth the risk. But $20 is just the base fine. They call us screaming when they discover the real cost: $166. When you pay a citation, you aren't just paying for...

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: I'm realizing some of you might not a-heard it if the local EIB affiliates cut away to cover the president who also appeared shortly after this program began. And one of the themes my opening comments was reacting to everywhere I'm seeing in the media that Obama finally backed down. "Obama caved. Yes, he did! We talked him back down. He no longer... He can't tell the Catholic Church what to do. Obama got the message. Obama, he's slinking away in shame." I said, "No, he's not," and no, he did not cave in any way, shape,...

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: Jerry on Long Island in New York, welcome to the EIB Network. Hello, sir. CALLER: Rush, mega, mega dittos from New York. Thank you for taking my call. It's a thrill to be speaking to you. RUSH: Thank you, sir, very much. CALLER: A huge thrill. Thank you very much. RUSH: You bet. CALLER: I was telling Snerdley, your opening monologues are usually amazing but this morning's was brilliant, and I think it should be distributed to every high school student in this country. Because it was absolutely conservatism on parade this morning, and if our candidates...

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...

The Cleveland Plain Dealer is reporting that the Ohio Supreme Court (OSC) has declined to hear the case of a 55-year-old Cleveland homeowner convicted in Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court last year of killing an intruder. In 2010, Carl Kozlosky was convicted by a Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court jury and sentenced last year to 18 years to life in prison for the shooting death of Andre Coleman on Sept. 20, 2009. Last fall, the 8th Ohio District Court of Appeals ordered a new trial for Kozlosky, saying there was overwhelming evidence that he had acted in self-defense. "Under the...

Is Rahm Emanuel floating gun control ideas to Obama for use during his “second term?” Does former Presidential advisor and current Chicago machine politics confidante Rahm Emanuel, with his own personal team of bodyguards, really believe that requiring a $65.00 per handgun registration fee every five years for every handgun owned in Illinois will really have any impact on gun crime in Chicago or anywhere in Illinois? Grooming himself for a run at the Governor’s office, Emmanuel claims that such a gun registration scheme will make the streets safer. He even thinks that this registration will cut illegal gun sales....

America's police state: The drones are coming Friday, February 10, 2012 A new federal law accelerating domestic use of government aerial surveillance drones brings America frighteningly close to an Orwellian police state. President Obama is expected to sign the FAA Reauthorization Act, which expedites approval for federal, state and local police to use these drones. The Federal Aviation Administration's existing case-by-case approach is chilling enough -- it's being sued over its refusal to disclose publicly which agencies use drones and how they're used. Still, it's known that the Department of Homeland Security's Customs and Border Protection arm uses drones domestically....

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: Everybody's reporting that Obama's caving on this mandate that the Catholic services provide abortion and all. There's not a cave here! There may be an accommodation, but there's no big cave-in here. It's still the government mandating this stuff happen. They're just changing the provider. It's not done by the church. He says he gave them a way out of it by mandating the insurance companies do it, but that's not the point here. Great to have you. It's Friday. Let's go to! JOHNNY DONOVAN: Live from the Left Coast at our satellite studios in Los Angeles,...

The age-old hobby of tossing a football or Frisbee on the beach on a beautiful summer day in Los Angeles will cost you a cool $1,000 thanks to a new ordinance passed by the Board of Supervisors Tuesday. Claiming that such activity could be dangerous to other beachgoers, the Supes outlawed "any person to cast, toss, throw, kick or roll any ball, tube, or any light object other than a beach ball or beach volleyball” on or over a beach.

No Democratic president ever picked a fight with the Catholic Church in quite the way that Barack Obama has. One of the first things that Jimmy Carter did when he came into office was to scrap federal funding for abortions,... Even Bill Clinton – the “sex president” – supported some limits on partial birth abortion [snip] Yet Obama’s attempt to force Catholic employees to provide contraception coverage in employee healthcare plans has united the entire Church establishment – Left and Right – against him. And this is the establishment that garlanded him with honours three years ago at Notre Dame...

I think the Department of Homeland Security just called me a terrorist. Not only me, but millions of other law-abiding Americans, not to mention Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, George Washington, Samuel Adams, Alexander Hamilton, and Patrick Henry, among others.

HANCEVILLE, Alabama, February 9, 2012 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Lawyers for the Eternal Word Television Network (EWTN) say that the broadcasting network has taken the Obama administration to court over a mandate forcing Catholic employers to pay for birth control, sterilization, and abortifacient drugs. The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty announced that it had filed suit Thursday morning on behalf of EWTN, considered the largest religious media network in the world. “The federal government cannot force people to violate their religion like this,” said Mark Rienzi, Senior Counsel at the Becket Fund and a constitutional law professor at the Catholic University of...

Today the Committee on Education and the Workforce hosted a hearing on the President’s January recent recess appointments to the National Labor Relations Board. To refresh everyone’s memory, President Obama made “recess” appointments to the NLRB early last month, while the Senate was not actually in recess. The Senate was in what is called a pro-forma session. In the context of appointees, longstanding Senate procedures consider pro-forma recess nearly identical to standard recess. Therefore, recess appointments cannot be made at this time. Recently, several different organizations have decided to file suits against the administration for these illegal appointments. During yesterday’s...

Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel wants lawmakers to require that all handguns in Illinois be registered with the state, or gun owners could face felony charges. A statewide gun registry is key in helping solve Chicago crimes that involve handguns from outside the city, and would also help crack down on gun trafficking, Emanuel is expected to argue Thursday. Under Emanuel's proposal, handgun owners would have to pay $65 for a registration certificate from the state, which would function much like the title to a car. Illinois law currently requires that gun owners and shooters have a firearm owners identification card,...

It’s ironic that it is Barack Obama now ramming a contraception policy down Catholics’ and other Americans’ throats. Little more than a month ago, former Clinton operative George Stephanopoulos spent 10 minutes in a Republican debate grilling presidential contenders Rick Santorum and Mitt Romney on, of all things, contraception. What inspired the bizarre questions? First, Santorum is a practicing Catholic who doesn’t believe in the use of artificial birth control. Second, responding to a query from ABC’s Jake Tapper about a week prior to the debate, Santorum reiterated a constitutional fact: States have a right to ban contraception should they...

The Republican-controlled House sought Wednesday to give President Barack Obama and his successors the line-item veto, a constitutionally questionable power over the purse that has been sought by Republican and Democrats alike. The legislation, expected to pass, would allow a president to pick out specific items in spending bills for elimination. Currently, the chief executive must sign or veto spending bills in their entirety. The president's choices for removal would then have to be approved by Congress. Congress has made several attempts in the past to enact line-item veto bills, saying that surgical cuts to spending bills are useful both...

It is ironic that in the country that invented gunpowder and possibly the first firearm, the “Fire Spear,” Communist China is complaining again that there are too many guns on Mainland China’s streets. Red Chinese officials have just announced another crackdown on private gun ownership there. Just like the perennial Five Year Plans in the Soviet Union, there have always been annual plans to catch Chinese who own firearms. Self defense there? Forget it. Its a country that is one of the world’s largest manufacturers of firearms, and where many guns wind up in the black market because of lax...

President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton are entering negotiations over — or seeking ratification of — five treaties that could radically limit our national sovereignty and the reach of our democratic institutions. Particularly scary is that the treaties, once signed and ratified, have the same status as constitutional law and cannot be altered or eclipsed by Congress or state legislatures. And their provisions must be enforced by U.S. courts. Those who wish to preserve our sovereignty and democratic control over our future must rally to block these treaties, either by pressing Obama and

Look! Up in the sky! Is it a bird? Is it a plane? It’s … a drone, and it’s watching you. That’s what privacy advocates fear from a bill Congress passed this week to make it easier for the government to fly unmanned spy planes in U.S. airspace. The FAA Reauthorization Act, which President Obama is expected to sign, also orders the Federal Aviation Administration to develop regulations for the testing and licensing of commercial drones by 2015.

Last Thursday, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder appeared before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee to answer questions about his role in the deadly “Fast and Furious” gun-running scandal. However, instead of answers, Congress got more defiance, more arrogance, and more wasted time with an attorney general who clearly feels no sense of obligation to the American people or our rule of law. But for all the stonewalling, there was at least one telling moment at this hearing, and it should concern law-abiding gun owners and all Americans who expect accountability from our government. In a rash attempt to...

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.

Nowhere is the haughtiness of American politics better displayed than with our dueling former Speakers. The latest love spat between Newt Gingrich and Nancy Pelosi illuminates America’s sorry political state. She keeps coyly insinuating she knows something and will time its release for maximum damage. It appears Mr. Gingrich is finished anyway, and I’m no fan. His infidelities trouble me. His overarching concern seems to be Newt Gingrich, a not uncommon trait in politicians, but hardly the attribute of a transcendent leader. His prior associations with Mrs. Pelosi promoting Cap and Trade and frequent policy flip-flops reveal an unscrupulous opportunist....

London, England-In yet another outrageous piece of social engineering from our coalition government, pensioners will be encouraged to downsize to smaller properties allowing local councils to rent their homes out as council houses and manage the tenancy. Local authorities will ‘help’ older people move from their homes into ‘more suitable accommodation’. Grant Schapps, the Housing Minister, who is a conservative member of parliament claims the scheme will solve a so-called ‘housing crisis’ as well as creating a system that will ‘permit access to various sources of wealth’ that are currently not being used to pay for care. Read that as...

Pelosi: 'I Don't Want To Pay For It...Surcharge' The Rich For Doctors Visits and Unemployment Benefits http://www.breitbart.tv/pelosi-on-unemployment-benefits-extension-id-rather-not-pay-for-it/

While many Americans celebrated Groundhog Day [last Thurs]day, lawmakers in Washington were participating in a more regular tradition: debating the state of the economy. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke took the stand before the House Budget Committee to defend the central bank’s recent policy decisions, a performance that mirrored the pomp and circumstance of the activities in Punxsutawney. Bernanke’s repetition of poor policy prescriptions was a fitting way to celebrate the national holiday. Once again, he insisted that interest rates will remain low without affecting inflation, and that government spending will increase job growth. In fact, Bernanke warned lawmakers ahead...

NEW YORK — Among the slick, million-dollar ads for the likes of Pepsi and Honda during the Super Bowl this Sunday, viewers in Washington will see a far more modest spot. New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Boston Mayor Thomas Menino will be sitting on a couch touting an issue most politicians avoid like the plague: gun control. The two mayors, whose local teams face off in the big game, are making the pitch for Mayors Against Illegal Guns (MAIG), the organization they co-founded in 2006.