Free Republic

Valerie Plame warns the "CBS This Morning" co-hosts that the NSA surveillance program should not just worry terrorists, but all of us.

Al-Qaeda has now welcomed al-Shabab--the group responsible for the Kenya mall attack--into its ranks. Despite the targeted US killing of al-Qaeda leaders, more and more terrorist groups are joining the al-Qaeda network and expanding membership - what led former Australian intelligence analyst Leah Farrell to say, "al-Qaeda's bigger now than it ever has been." Both Osama bin Laden's death and the Arab Spring unrest allowed the al-Qaeda network to grow much stronger.

United States v. $35,651.11 (The cash in the account of Schott's Supermarket) Feds Seize Family Grocery Store’s Entire Bank Account Can the government use civil forfeiture to take your money when you have done nothing wrong—and then pocket the proceeds? The IRS thinks so. For over 30 years, Terry Dehko has successfully run a grocery store in Fraser, Mich., with his daughter Sandy. In January 2013, without warning, the federal government used civil forfeiture to seize all of the money from the Dehkos’ store bank account (more than $35,000) even though they’ve done absolutely nothing wrong. Their American Dream is...

Our President has no morals. With great ease, Obama and his Democratic minions are issuing orders to their public worker soldiers to make the lives of every American as torturously difficult as possible…to score cheap political points against the GOP “faction.” A Park Service ranger spoke out against what he called “disgusting” tactics. “It’s a cheap way to deal with the situation,” an angry Park Service ranger in Washington says of the harassment. “We’ve been told to make life as difficult for people as we can. It’s disgusting.” Via Drudge, The Washington Times reports, The games politicians play: Barack Obama...

IRS Abuse: It doesn't take a brain surgeon to know that the IRS audit of Dr. Ben Carson can't be a mere coincidence. In any powerful syndicate, the capos know who to whack without the godfather ordering it. The only way the FBI could put Gambino crime family boss John Gotti in prison was to bug an old lady's apartment in New York's Little Italy and record him giving orders to kill. But until the FBI bugs the West Wing of the White House, or the Treasury building next door, or the Internal Revenue Service's headquarters a few blocks to...

What does the government shutdown mean for the mortgage market? Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac aren’t affected by the shutdown. While the FHA is still processing loans, it’s operating with a vastly reduced staff, which could lead to delays. The FHA is part of the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Office of Housing, which has just 64 of 2,972 employees reporting to work right now. The biggest issue facing the mortgage market is that the Internal Revenue Service isn’t issuing Form 4506-T, which is what most lenders currently use to verify borrowers’ incomes. For loans ready to close now,...

Tuesday morning, seven National Park Service employees were seen erecting and tending to a barricade around the World War II memorial in Washington, D.C. One NPS employee was operating a forklift. There usually aren't any NPS employees working at the World War II memorial. A couple hours later, when an Honor Flight of World War II veterans arrived, accompanied by Democratic and Republican members of Congress, the fences blocking the memorial were easily moved away, allowing the veterans to enter. But the barriers are still at the memorial, and they've been reinforced. This morning, I walked by the memorial and...

This week, Ben Carson said that shortly after he gave a much-publicized speech criticizing ObamaCare at the National Prayer Breakfast, he found himself audited by the Internal Revenue Service. It makes him suspicious. There was a day when we might have written off a claim like this. But given what we’ve learned about the IRS and its targeting of right-of-center organizations, the burden of proof has shifted. Though the scandal is no longer making headlines, the questions about what was going on with IRS official Lois Lerner and her pals have never been answered. Meanwhile, the storyline fed keeps changing.

About 33,000 non-military federal workers in San Diego had their third day of no work and no pay Thursday because of the government shutdown. The number of furloughed federal employees in San Diego was estimated by Marney Cox, the chief economist for the San Diego Association of Governments. One group from the National Treasury Employees Union, which represents more than 25 different federal government agencies, spoke out about the shutdown at a press conference outside the Federal Building in downtown San Diego. Nine NTEU members, who all work for the IRS, said they're struggling without their paychecks and want to...

Conservative org claims it has irrefutable proof IRS illegally leaked donor infoThe National Organization for Marriage (NOM) filed suit against the federal government and the Internal Revenue Service Thursday, claiming it had “irrefutable proof” someone within the agency illegally leaked the conservative organization’s confidential tax returns to its ideological opponents last year.NOM is seeking damages from the disclosure, as well as to overturn a statute shielding the IRS from disclosing any information about the incident, according to a complaint filed by the Act Right Legal Foundation on behalf of NOM in the Eastern District of Virginia Thursday.The Human Rights Campaign...

Just months after he gave a speech earlier this year that challenged America’s leadership in President Obama’s presence, Dr. Ben Carson was targeted by IRS agents who requested to review his real estate holdings and then conducted a full audit without finding any wrongdoing. “I guess it could be a coincidence, but I never had been audited before and never really had any encounters with the IRS,” Dr. Carson said in an interview Thursday with The Washington Times. “But it certainly would make one suspicious because we know now the IRS has been used for political purposes and therefore actions...

While the nation’s political class has been fixated on the government shutdown in Washington this week, the National Security Agency (NSA) has continued to spy on all Americans and, by its ambiguity and shrewd silence, seems to be acknowledging slowly that the scope of its spying is truly breathtaking. The Obama administration is of the view that the NSA can spy on anyone, anywhere. The president thinks that federal statutes enable the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) court to authorize the NSA to capture any information it desires about any persons without identifying the persons and without a showing...

Dr. Ben S. Carson went years without ever having a run-in with the Internal Revenue Service. But his good fortune changed after his speech at the National Prayer Breakfast in February, the former Johns Hopkins neurosurgeon said Monday night at an event with business leaders and elected officials in Alabama. Alabama’s Yellow Hammer News tweeted Dr. Carson’s remarks from the annual Business Council of Alabama Chairman’s Dinner: “I had my first encounter with the IRS this year, unsurprisingly after the Prayer Breakfast.”

A federal court should not permit five leading Internet companies to reveal how often they are ordered to turn over information about their customers in national security investigations, the government argued in papers released Wednesday. In a filing with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, the government said that allowing the companies to release such detailed information “would be invaluable to our adversaries,” providing a clear picture of where the government’s surveillance efforts are directed and how its surveillance activities change over time, the court papers stated. Companies seeking to release the information about the orders received are Google Inc., Microsoft...

One of the groups at the center of the IRS scandal has finally received its tax-exempt status after a three-year delay prompted by a politically driven move to block Tea Party and other conservative groups, many that slammed the president during his re-election, from winning the special status.

Is it true fines for Obamacare will be taken directly out of your bank account?

WASHINGTON — After a public backlash to government spying, President Barack Obama called for an independent group to review the vast surveillance programs that allow the collections of phone and email records. Now, weeks before the group’s first report is due, some lawmakers, technology organizations and civil liberties groups are concerned that the panel’s members are too close to the Obama administration and its mission too vague to provide a thorough scrubbing of the National Security Agency technologies that have guided intelligence gathering since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------snip---------------------------- The members of the review group are Richard Clarke,...

Even before she retired last week, scandalized IRS official Lois Lerner's compensation was already attracting attention. While on administrative leave, federal rules allowed her to keep collecting a salary, one that reportedly totaled $177,000. So it was no surprise when speculation arose over how much Lerner could collect in federal pension benefits. Unfortunately, that speculation, which initially projected a benefit of over $50,000, might be off by about half ... and in the wrong direction. National Taxpayers Union calculations show that Lerner could qualify for a starting pension at the annual equivalent of as much as $102,600, and up to...

In the wake of the government's inability to pass a budget, the government officially began the process of “shutting down” nonessential services for the first time in 17 years. This includes sending home nearly a third of the government’s 2.1 million-person workforce. National parks will be shut down. The Internal Revenue Service will temporarily suspend audits and will not staff telephone support lines. Many of the nation’s federally-run attractions, like the Smithsonian and the National Zoo, will be closed (privately-funded museums and zoos, of course, will remain open). Federally backed loans will not be available for rural communities and small...

On this day, I make the pledge that when my employer drops my health insurance, I will not join the exchange. When the IRS fines me, I will not pay that fine! When that results in the IRS issuing a warrant for that fine, I will not comply! When they knock on my door to enforce the warrant, I will not answer! Eventually, they will kick in my door to enforce the warrant and at that time many will pay a heavy price! The "tolerant and compassionate left" must be willing to shoot me dead to enforce their utopian dreams!...

At an event in Birmingham, Ala. Monday night, former Johns Hopkins neurosurgeon Ben Carson revealed that he had received a visit from the Internal Revenue Service following his much-noted remarks at a National Prayer Breakfast earlier this year. “I had my first encounter with the IRS this year, unsurprisingly after the prayer breakfast,” Carson told an audience that at the annual Business Council of Alabama Chairman’s Dinner, according to a report from Cliff Sims of the Montgomery, Ala.-based Yellowhammer News Carson’s February speech February made him a conservative darling for criticizing President Barack Obama’s 2010 health care reform law, while...

In less than two weeks, thousands of truckers will descend on Washington, D.C., driving their big-rigs and calling for the restoration of a constitutional republic – but now their plan has taken a new twist: Their friends and families will simultaneously join other Americans rallying on overpasses across the nation for Obama’s impeachment. The Truckers’ Ride for the Constitution movement has a new ally in their protest against what organizers say is corruption in government and a trashing of the Constitution. The group is teaming up with Overpasses for Obama’s Impeachment to line the routes into Washington with flags during...

I'd love to read a few articles entitled: "Obama Threatens to Shut Down Government", "Democrats Threaten to Shut Down Government", "Harry Reid Threatens to Shut Down Government". Those would be the truth in bold print. "Truth in Advertising" so to speak. The reality is that democrat politicians are throwing temper tantrums over adding one more exemption to the huge pile of exemptions they've already issued. They've given exemptions to their fat cats, big businesses, and corporate welfare pals. They've given exemptions to countless cronies. They've even given an exemption to themselves after this really odd whining about ObamaCare draining their...

The NSA has been graphing American’s social networks and plotting them as they do organized crime since at least 2010, according to the latest published Edward Snowden leak. The highly secretive intelligence agency has been mapping out American citizens’ social connections – identifying associates, determining locations, and logging who they talk to – by taking advantage of loosened rules previously meant to restrict surveillance actions. As far back as November, 2010, the agency authorized spies to conduct ‘large-scale graph analysis on very large sets of communications metadata without having to check foreignness,’ the New York Times revealed Saturday. Mapped out:...

Expecting ObamaCare's Collapse Is Living In Wonderland Posted 09/27/2013 06:52 PM ET Entitlements: Give Democrats as much ObamaCare rope as they want, then sit back and watch them hang themselves. This advice from some pundits is the kind of thing that will make ObamaCare permanent. The late, great Bob Bartley, longtime editor of the Wall Street Journal, writing in 1992 in his definitive account of the Reagan prosperity, "The Seven Fat Years," issued a warning about government-controlled health care. He called it "absolutely true that in the long term we will be unable to control government expenditure if the government...

I’ve always paid my taxes and have never been arrested or charged with any crime in my life. I am a successful small-business man. But in January of this year, I woke up to find that my business’ entire bank account — more than $35,000 — had been wrongly seized. Later that same day, I was writing checks to my vendors. A federal agent strolls in. She tells me my hard-earned cash was taken by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). I was shocked. I’ve broken no law, committed no crime and was never warned my store could be in trouble....

On February 28, 1993, 76 agents of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) arrived at the Branch Davidian compound just outside Waco, Texas. By the time they left on April 19th, more than six dozen men, women and children (including several infants) were dead; many burned alive in an inferno that destroyed the compound during the federal government’s final, massive assault on the flimsy structure. Despite then-Attorney General Janet Reno publicly accepting “responsibility” for the catastrophe, no agent or employee of the federal government was ever held accountable. I know; I participated in the lengthy 1995 congressional oversight...

WASHINGTON, D.C. – The IRS is unable to account for $67 million spent from a slush fund established for Obamacare implementation, according to a Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA) report released today. The “Health Insurance Reform Implementation Fund” (HIRIF) was tucked into Obamacare in order to give the IRS money to enforce the tax provisions of the healthcare law. The fund, totaling some $1 billion of taxpayer money, was used to roll out enforcement mechanisms for the approximately 50 tax provisions of Obamacare. According to the report: “Specifically, the IRS did not account for or attempt to quantify...

WASHINGTON, DC -- U.S. Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) released the twenty-fifth in a series of facts about Obamacare: The union representing IRS workers — tasked with enforcing Obamacare — vocally opposes participation in the law’s exchanges. IRS union leaders provided their members with a form letter expressing concern with legislation to “push federal employees out of the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program and into the insurance exchanges established under the Affordable Care Act.”

WASHINGTON, D.C. – The IRS is unable to account for $67 million spent from a slush fund established for Obamacare implementation, according to a Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA) report released today. The “Health Insurance Reform Implementation Fund” (HIRIF) was tucked into Obamacare in order to give the IRS money to enforce the tax provisions of the healthcare law. The fund, totaling some $1 billion of taxpayer money, was used to roll out enforcement mechanisms for the approximately 50 tax provisions of Obamacare. According to the report: “Specifically, the IRS did not account for or attempt to quantify...

The Obama administration on Tuesday defended its effort to regulate the tax return preparation business for the first time in U.S. history, basing its case largely on a 19th century law dealing with horses lost or killed in the Civil War.

The intriguing possibility that Lois Lerner might turn John Dean is on the table. Patrick Howley of The Daily Caller has tracked down what seems to be going on behind the scenes. IRS scandal figure Lois Lerner is negotiating through her lawyers with Rep. Darrell Issa's House Oversight and Government Reform Committee about possibly gaining immunity to testify again in the committee's investigative hearings. "The Chairman did not adjourn the hearing, he recessed it. Ms. Lerner remains under subpoena. The Committee has not made any offer of immunity to Ms. Lerner. The Committee has, however, indicated a willingness to listen...

Justice: Lois Lerner, the IRS official responsible for harassing Tea Party and other conservative groups, is retiring. Democrats are hoping this is the end of the scandal. In fact, the investigation is only beginning. Lerner, it's been reported, will walk away with a $50,000-plus-a-year retirement, not bad for someone officially found to be in "neglect of (her) duties" and about to be fired. She's been on official leave since May, when she admitted the IRS had targeted conservative groups for added scrutiny. Unfortunately, Lerner, the former director of IRS exempt organizations, claimed only low-level "rogue" IRS officials in Cincinnati were...

The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee—which is probing the Internal Revenue Service’s discriminatory treatment of Tea Party and conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status—says the IRS has thus far handed over to the committee only about 10 percent of the documents the IRS itself has said are responsive to the committee’s demands for documents. The committee subpoenaed the Treasury Department for relevant documents from the department and the IRS more than seven weeks ago at the beginning of August. “To date, the IRS has produced to the committee only about 10 percent of all responsive materials that it has...

Thankfully, she’ll no longer be in a position to affect policy as a government employee. Unfortunately, she’ll likely soon be back in a position to affect policy as a government lobbyist, making several times the salary she made before. Taxpayers will remember her fondly as someone who, when asked for her help in uncovering potential IRS malfeasance against the president’s political enemies, clammed up and refused to cooperate for fear of incriminating herself. Lois Lerner, the Internal Revenue Service official at the center of the agency’s tea party scandal, is retiring, the agency confirmed Monday. Lerner headed the IRS division...

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has offered election integrity group True The Vote its tax-exempt status in what appears to be a bid to keep the group from proceeding with discovery on its lawsuit against the agency, Breitbart News has learned exclusively. “We are pleased and relieved that the IRS and the DOJ are finally doing what should have been done three years ago, which is to recognize TTV as a charitable and educational organization, which we have always been and will continue to be,” True The Vote President Catherine Engelbrecht said in a statement provided exclusively to Breitbart News.

Lois G. Lerner, the woman at the center of the IRS tea party targeting scandal, retired from the agency Monday morning after an internal investigation found she was guilty of “neglect of duties” and was going to call for her ouster, according to congressional staff. Her departure marks the first person to pay a significant price in the scandal, though Republicans were quick to say her decision doesn’t put the matter to rest, and pointed out that she can still be called before Congress to testify.

<p>The Internal Revenue Service said Monday that Lois G. Lerner, the woman at the center of the tea party targeting scandal, has resigned from the agency — though because of privacy rules it could say nothing more.</p> <p>Ms. Lerner, who had been on paid administrative leave, was the director of the division that reviewed the applications for tax-exempt status from political groups over the past few years and that, according to an internal audit, gave extra scrutiny to tea party and other conservative groups.</p>

Embattled IRS official Lois Lerner is retiring from the agency effective Monday, two congressional aides told POLITICO. Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2013/09/lois-lerner-retires-irs-97217.html#ixzz2fkIfmJUs Lerner sparked the IRS scandal in May when she acknowledged that the agency wrongly targeted tea party groups applying for a tax exemption. She was placed on administrative leave later that month and is under a subpoena to testify before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.

That's right, the terrorist-sponsoring Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation Trial, FBI "consultants" and promoters of Obama's Muslim Brotherhood BFFs, just changed their name to the Washington Trust Foundation. WTF? Or perhaps more to the point, WHY? An explosive story posted Sunday by Charles Johnson at the Daily Caller reveals that CAIR, er, excuse me, WTF, has apparently been laundering money obtained from Middle East donors in violation of federal law. While it publicly presents itself as a single organization, CAIR has in fact created a multitude of 501(c)(3) organizations and a 501(c)(4), CAIR...

Al-Shabaab is claiming that there are American gunmen among those still holed up in the Westgate mall in a standoff with Kenyan and Israeli special forces. The Somali al-Qaeda affiliate tweeted a series of names on its latest account before Twitter against suspended the group. Al-Shabaab has been creating new accounts each time they get shut down but a movement of pro-Kenyan tweeters has been tracking down the new accounts and complaining to Twitter. “We received permission to disclose the names of our mujahideen inside #Westgate,” their latest account tweeted. They proceeded to tweet the names one by one, including...

When ObamaCare was finally shoved through the United States Senate and down the people’s collective throat, Democrats were certain their Affordable Care Act (ACA) would be so well received that politicians in Red and Blue states alike would race to invest the sums needed to peddle the Act’s products. So confidant was Congress in fact, that no provision was made for the federal funding of ObamaCare exchanges (sales centers) should the odd state refuse to make the necessary investment and force the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to foot the bill. Well it’s 3 years later now and...

Republicans investigating the IRS targeting scandal said Wednesday that the agency continued to conduct secret surveillance on tea party groups even after approving them for tax-exempt status. Acting Commissioner Danny Werfel said he shut down the monitoring program after he found out about it, and said he has halted all audits of tax-exempt organizations based on political activity as he tries to get a handle on the embattled agency. Mr. Werfel, who was tapped four months ago to clean up the Internal Revenue Service after the targeting came to light, also told Congress he is troubled by emails sent by...

Corruption: As the layers on the IRS scandal are peeled back, it's become increasingly clear the law has been broken and the White House may have been far more deeply involved than claimed. Time for a special prosecutor. A House investigation has found that, far from being a case of "rogue agents" in Cincinnati as the White House has claimed, the IRS harassment of conservative groups appears to have been directed from the very top in Washington, D.C. IRS employees say they were made "acutely" aware as far back as 2010 that President Obama wanted to go after tea party...

A national tea party group is asking for permission to keep their donors secret — just like the socialists. Citing a long litany of harassment examples, the Tea Party Leadership Fund is asking the Federal Election Commission for the same right granted to the Socialist Workers Party to shield the names and information of their donors from the public. In a new request to the FEC shared with POLITICO, the group argues that tea party donors and activists are being targeted for harassment by government officials and private groups — and they cite derogatory comments by politicians and overbearing government...

A key House GOP lawmaker says the Internal Revenue Service continued to target conservative political groups even after approving their applications for tax exempt status. … Rep. Charles Boustany of Louisiana said Wednesday that conservative groups were also subjected to special scrutiny even after their applications were approved. …

As reported last night, "anti-Obama rhetoric" was one of the criteria the IRS used in some cases to flag nonprofit applicants for further scrutiny. Now, a congressional investigation reveals that the IRS undertook the targeting scheme as a result of perceived pressure from Democrat politicians, according to a report in the Washington Times titled "IRS officials thought Obama wanted crackdown on tea party groups, worried about negative press." And at least in some quarters, no doubt the mission was eagerly accepted -- the congressional report notes that there are emails between staffers writing derisively about the Tea Party. According to...

IRS employees were “acutely” aware in 2010 that President Obama wanted to crack down on conservative organizations and were egged into targeting tea party groups by press reports mocking the emerging movement, according to an interim report being circulated Tuesday by House investigators.

It may be the most incriminating evidence yet. Last week, while the world’s eyes were fixed upon the Obama administration’s fumbled response to the Syria crisis, new documents emerged in the allegedly “phony” IRS scandal. These documents – emails from Lois Lerner, then Director of Exempt Organizations at the IRS – were short, but highly damaging to the IRS’s persistent (and pernicious) spin. The first email, a February 1, 2011, message to – among others – Obama donor and fellow IRS executive Holly Paz, proclaims: “Tea Party matter very dangerous. This could be the vehicle to go to court on...

They’ve defended the likes of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and former International Monetary Fund chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn. Next up for the heavy hitters of Washington’s legal community: embattled Internal Revenue Service workers. Even as the tea party-targeting scandal dies down, the staffers at the center of the mess are turning to some of the city’s top lawyers to defend themselves against ongoing investigations and congressional inquiries. Lois Lerner, who became the public face of the scandal as the former head of the IRS tax-exempt unit, turned to William Taylor. He’s a founding partner of Zuckerman Spaeder LLP, where he has...