Free Republic

(CNSNews.com) – The Obama administration Sunday disputed reports in Israeli and Arab media suggesting that Secretary of State John Kerry had tried to push a Gaza ceasefire plan promoted by Hamas-supporting Turkey and Qatar, at the expense of proposals put forward earlier by Egypt and backed by Palestinian Authority chairman Mahmoud Abbas. In a conference call with Israeli reporters, a U.S. official speaking on condition of anonymity disputed reports that a plan, which was flatly rejected by the Israeli cabinet on Friday afternoon, amounted to...

"Oversight Dems to America: “You Don’t Have the Right to Know” about White House Spending Taxpayer Dollars on Political Activity" Committee votes to reject White House claim that head of political office has absolute immunity from Congress Today, House Oversight and Government Reform Committee approved a resolution to reject White House assertions of “absolute immunity” for political affairs office head, David Simas, who has failed to appear before the Committee twice. This morning, the White House declined Chairman’s further accommodation to allow Mr. Simas to comply with his obligations under the subpoena. Yesterday, Chairman Issa offered White House Counsel Neil...

STOCKTON, Calif. — Prosecutors in Northern California said Thursday that they have obtained an arrest warrant for a tuberculosis patient who has refused treatment and may be contagious, putting those around him at risk. Eduardo Rosas Cruz, a 25-year-old transient, went to the San Joaquin General Hospital’s emergency room in March, complaining of a severe cough. Diagnosed with tuberculosis, medical staff told him to stay in a Stockton motel room, where a health worker would deliver his medication and watch him take it. But officials say he took off. County health officials asked prosecutors to seek the warrant, in part,...

Scandal: The tangled web of IRS deceit unravels a bit more with news recycled backup tapes of lost emails still exist and statements before a federal judge that Lois Lerner's hard drive was irreparably damaged were untrue. Deliberately destroying evidence pertaining to the investigation of possible criminal activity is a crime. So is lying about it to Congress and the courts as part of a cover-up of that activity. On July 11, U.S. District Court Judge Reggie Walton, at a hearing examining a lawsuit against the IRS by the targeted conservative group True the Vote, told Obama administration lawyers he...

BATTLE MOUNTAIN — Once again ranchers who run cattle on the Argenta Allotment in Lander County were told Wednesday that due to drought a number of areas would be closed to livestock. Pete and Lynn Tomera were told by the Bureau of Land Management they had a week to remove cattle from nine segments of the allotment ... We have 7 days to ride the entire mountain and have the cattle off. We are right in the middle of haying and are forced to drop everything and begin gathering cattle,” the Tomeras wrote. “We are forced to put the cattle...

Scandal: An internationally accredited information-technology asset-management firm says the IRS has some explaining to do as our patience is taxed with tales of even more convenient computer crashes. Private-sector organizations as vast as the Internal Revenue Service typically have redundancy built into their information technology systems, as secure record keeping is the key to managing their businesses and staying in business. Such records, if nothing else, are often required to be kept by law, and often by the IRS itself. As we have noted, Lois Lerner's lost emails from the critical period when the IRS was serving as a political...

The Obama administration has quietly approved a substantial expansion of the terrorist watchlist system, authorizing a secret process that requires neither “concrete facts” nor “irrefutable evidence” to designate an American or foreigner as a terrorist, according to a key government document obtained by The Intercept. The “March 2013 Watchlisting Guidance,” a 166-page document issued last year by the National Counterterrorism Center, spells out the government’s secret rules for putting individuals on its main terrorist database, as well as the no fly list and the selectee list, which triggers enhanced screening at airports and border crossings. The new guidelines allow individuals...

A new study shows the lesser prairie chicken population has exploded by 20 percent prompting concern by western lawmakers that the Obama administration acted hastily when it listed the bird as threatened under the Endangered Species Act. The aerial survey conducted last month by the Western Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies showed the grouse species numbers jumped from 18,747 to 22,415. That study plus the Agriculture Department’s tardiness in reporting conservation efforts to Congress as required by law prompted a letter from lawmakers including Colorado Republican Rep. Scott Tipton demanding the report. “We request that your department provide this...

Nearly 120 wind turbines catch fire each year – ten times the number reported by the industry – according to new research. The figures show that fires are the second biggest cause of accidents in wind turbines, after blade failure. ... because the turbines are so far off the ground, it is almost impossible to put the fires out, leading to the whole structure potentially being destroyed. Dr Guillermo Rein of Imperial College said: “Fires are a problem for the industry, impacting on energy production, economic output and emitting toxic fumes. “This could cast a shadow over the industry’s green...

Federal Express was indicted Thursday on federal charges alleging that it distributed prescription drugs and other controlled substances to people that the company knew had no prescriptions on behalf of illegal Internet pharmacies. "We want to be clear what's at stake here: The government is suggesting that FedEx assume criminal responsibility for the legality of the contents of the millions of packages that we pick up and deliver every day,” said Patrick Fitzgerald, a senior FedEx official. “We are a transportation company -- we are not law enforcement. We have no interest in violating the privacy of our customers. We...

Another day, another VA tragedy. An Albany nurse claims dying New York Veterans were denied painkillers. Instead they were given salt water mixtures. Valerie Riviello, a nurse at the Albany Stratton VA medical center, claims that fellow employees had reported to her that dying veterans were denied painkillers such as morphine to ease their pain. Instead, they were given salt water mixtures. Riviello told the Times Union: Among stories that nurse Valerie Riviello has heard from other employees at the Albany VA is one about dying patients who were supposed to receive morphine to alleviate pain, but instead got a...

"As Senior White House Advisor Defies Congressional Subpoena, Committee Releases Audio Recording of Cabinet Secretary Making Illegal Campaign Solicitation" Then Labor Secretary: “Off-the-record here—Wanted to ask you if you could help us get folks organized to come to a fundraiser that we’re doing for Organizing for America for Obama campaign” As Director of the White House Office of Political Strategy and Outreach, David Simas, in defiance of a congressional subpoena, failed to appear today to testify before a House Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing on taxpayer-funded political campaign activity by government officials, the Committee released an audio recording of...

If the Southern Poverty Law Center got one thing right in the report it released last week about the standoff involving ranting racist rancher Cliven Bundy, it’s this: Those who broke the law need to be held to account

No one wants dirty water, but at a time when our economy is struggling, why is the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) pursuing new rules on water which place greater restrictions and financial penalties on law-abiding Americans? The new rules reclassify the meaning of water and expand government intrusion onto private lands. According to a report in the Washington Post, at issue is the definition of federally protected waters. In March, the Environmental Protection Agency pitched new rules meant to clarify and expand its regulatory reach under the Clean Water Act to include small streams, riverbanks, wetlands and floodplains. Gina McCarthy,...

Was there any email correspondence between the White House and former IRS Tax Exempt Director Lois Lerner relative to Malik Obama’s Barack H. Obama Foundation (BHOF)? If so, when would it have taken place? Could it have been any time between January 2009 – April of 2011? The reason that should be of interest is that as of yesterday, the White House has suddenly proclaimed that all emails between Lerner and the White House during that time frame have been lost due to a computer crash. To clarify, it is obviously not known if there was any correspondence between Lerner...

Big Government: The EPA is now claiming the authority to bypass courts and, on its own, garnish the paychecks and attach the assets of those it accuses of violating its rules. And, as with the IRS, its hard drives also crash. The Environmental Protection Agency's insatiable lust for power has now gone beyond being the pen and the phone for President Obama's climate change, bypassing both the Constitution and the Congress in enacting rules and regulations that the American people and their representatives did not enact or even support. Through an announcement in the Federal Register, the agency is claiming...

COLUMBIA, Mo. -- The Obama administration's attempt to assuage farmers' and ranchers' fears about a major Clean Water Act proposal has drawn flak from all corners, forcing the U.S. EPA administrator herself to concede yesterday that there are "legitimate concerns" with the effort. At issue is the interpretive rule for agriculture that the Obama administration released in March in tandem with a major proposal to increase the number of streams and wetlands that receive automatic Clean Water Act protection following years of regulatory uncertainty. Administrator Gina McCarthy said on a call with reporters yesterday that the interpretive rule was intended...

Gary Harrington, the Oregon man convicted of collecting rainwater and snow runoff on his rural property, went to jail today. ... Gary Harrington will be serving in jail until September 2014 for collecting rainwater. ... “I’m sacrificing my liberty so we can stand up as a country and stand for our liberty,” Harrington told a small crowd of people gathered outside of the Jackson County (Ore.) Jail.

First Costco removed Dinesh D’Souza’s book “America” from all of their stores, and now Google is piling on. Liberal hacks are doing whatever they can to make sure people don’t see this movie and hear it’s message. Liberals are all about trying to squash free speech. Makes me sick. From the Hollywood Reporter: Lawyers representing Dinesh D’Souza’s newest film, America, have fired off a letter to Google demanding that the search engine correct problems that they say are hampering the ability of consumers to figure out where the movie is playing. The letter claims that Google has been confusing America...

Gov. Chris Christie vetoed a gun control bill Wednesday that would have banned ammunition magazines holding more than 10 rounds. In his veto message, the Republican governor rejected the idea that limiting the number of bullets that guns can hold will put an end to mass shootings, calling it a "simplistic" and "trivial" approach. The bill would have reduced the legal ammunition capacity from 15 to 10 rounds.