Free Republic

Judicial Watch has long been on the trail of the corruption and deceit that were part and parcel of former First Lady Hillary Clinton’s National Taskforce on Health Care Reform. I’m pleased to report that we have scored another breakthrough, pulling back more the veil of secrecy in which the Clintons have long shrouded their most famous policy failure. On October 17, 2013, thanks to Judicial Watch litigation, the public gained access to more than 57,000 pages of previously withheld documents from the Clinton Presidential Library related to the “cabinet-level” taskforce chaired by former First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton during...

In the wake of reports that First Lady Michelle Obama’s classmate at Princeton earned the no-bid contract to build the failed Obamacare website, we learn of another no-bid deal going to a marketing firm with close ties to President Barack Obama. According to documents obtained by Judicial Watch, Shepardson, Stern & Kaminsky was the recipient of a plum no-bid contract for $100,000 to design the “Let’s Move” logo for Mrs. Obama’s childhood obesity campaign. An arrangement that violates federal contracting rules and is acknowledged by federal officials as an “unauthorized commitment,” the documents show.

- FrontPage Magazine - http://frontpagemag.com - Obama’s Secret Collaboration with ACORN BossesPosted By Matthew Vadum On October 17, 2013 @ 12:50 am In Daily Mailer,FrontPage | 1 Comment Former officers of the disgraced radical group ACORN are still advising the Obama administration and guiding its catastrophic far-left policies almost three years after the group filed bankruptcy.Former ACORN Housing public affairs director Bruce Dorpalen, who now runs the National Housing Resource Center (NHRC), has been meeting with and advising senior Obama administration officials on housing policy, according to good-government group Judicial Watch. The watchdog discovered the secret collaborations after filing a...

A Florida orthodontist sued the Obama administration on Tuesday, insisting that the White House must abandon changes it has made on its own to the Affordable Care Act, instead obeying the letter of the law as Congress passed it. The administration has made several tweaks to the Obamacare law, including a one-year delay of a measure that requires companies with 50 or more employees to offer them health insurance or pay financial penalties. The law specifies an exact date when that feature is to go into effect – January 1, 2014 – but the White House announced in July that...

Judicial Watch is mobilizing resources for the fight over election integrity — the organization has just announced the hiring of former Department of Justice Voting Section Deputy Chief Robert Popper. This is very bad news for vote fraudsters, vote deniers, and organizations (including Eric Holder’s Justice Department) that stand in the way of election integrity. Popper worked with me on the New Black Panther case at the Justice Department. This means that three of the four lawyers who worked on that case have left DOJ, and are now on the side of preventing lawlessness in voting rather than aiding and...

Defense Document Suggests Colonists Fighting British Rule were members of “extremist movement” (Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch announced today that it has obtained educational materials from the Department of Defense (DOD) depicting conservative organizations as “hate groups” and advising students to be aware that “many extremists will talk of individual liberties, states’ rights, and how to make the world a better place.” The documents repeatedly cite the leftwing Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) as a resource for identifying “hate groups.”

A conservative watchdog group accused the Justice Department of helping manage the "pressure campaign" last year against George Zimmerman in the wake of the Trayvon Martin shooting, citing documents that show an obscure agency spent thousands assisting local demonstrations.

Judicial Watch announced today that has obtained documents in response to local, state, and federal records requests revealing that a little-known unit of the Department of Justice (DOJ), the Community Relations Service (CRS), was deployed to Sanford, FL, following the Trayvon Martin shooting to help organize and manage rallies and protests against George Zimmerman...

A division of the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) was deployed to Sanford, Florida in 2012 to provide assistance for anti-George Zimmerman protests, including a rally headlined by activist Al Sharpton, according to newly released documents. The Community Relations Service (CRS), a unit of DOJ, reported expenses related to its deployment in Sanford to help manage protests between March and April 2012, according to documents obtained by the watchdog group Judicial Watch. CRS spent $674.14 between March 25-27 related to having been “deployed to Sanford, FL, to work marches, demonstrations, and rallies related to the shooting and death of an...

Judicial Watch, Inc. on April 24, 2012 launched an investigation into the Trayvon Martin case based on reports that the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) had sent a secret team of “peacekeepers” to Sanflord, Florida, where Martin was shot on February 26, 2012 after wandering in a gated community after dark. George Zimmerman, a resident of the community and its neighborhood watch captain, is currently on trial for Martin’s death though he maintains he acted in self-defense. Records obtained by Judicial Watch in response to local, state and federal public records requests show that the so-called peacekeepers are part of...

Judicial Watch has released documents showing the latest abuse of power by the Department of Justice (DOJ): helping “organize and manage rallies and protests against George Zimmerman.” Whatever one may think about the guilt or innocence of Zimmerman in his ongoing trial, we should all agree that the chief law enforcement agency of the federal government should not be involved in stage-managing public protests. Yet according to the documents obtained by Judicial Watch through a Freedom of Information Act request, the Community Relations Service at Eric Holder’s DOJ “deployed to Sanford, FL, to work marches, demonstrations, and rallies related to...

Washington, D.C. – Judicial Watch announced today that has obtained documents in response to local, state, and federal records requests revealing that a little-known unit of the Department of Justice (DOJ), the Community Relations Service (CRS), was deployed to Sanford, FL, following the Trayvon Martin shooting to help organize and manage rallies and protests against George Zimmerman.

A secretive data collection program run by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau allows private contractors access to millions of Americans’ personal financial information, according to a government accountability group. The information may also be shared with other federal agencies. Documents obtained by Washington-based Judicial Watch through the Freedom of Information Act illustrate the cost and scope of the program, which business groups and some Republican lawmakers have assailed as invasive and potentially illegal. The Daily Caller News Foundation previously reported how the CFPB compelled banks to comply with the program by making successful passage of routine inspections conditional on supplying...

Were you under the impression that your credit card transactions are private? If so, I am sorry to burst your bubble. As you will see below, there are actually multiple government agencies that are gathering and storing records of your credit card transactions. And in turn, those government agencies share that information with other government agencies that want it. So if you are making a purchase that you don't want anyone to know about, don't use a credit card. This is one of the reasons why the government hates cash so much. It is just so hard to track. In...

Get ready for another front on the debate over privacy, consumption, and the trade-off between them. Yesterday, Judicial Watch announced that they had received data through a FOIA demand that showed warrantless surveillance on 5 million American consumers — not for national-security reasons, but for the new Consumer Financial Protection Board. The documents show that the controversial panel has contracted out the service of trawling through millions of transactions, emphases in original: Judicial Watch announced today that it has obtained records from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) revealing that the agency has spent millions of dollars for the warrantless...

Judicial Watch will host a panel discussion: “The Continuing Obama IRS Scandal.” Panelists include Congressman Jim Jordan (OH-04), U.S. House of Representatives; Cleta Mitchell, partner, Foley & Lardner LLP; Brian Brown, president, National Organization for Marriage; and Jenny Beth Martin, co-founder, Tea Party Patriots. The panel will examine the continuing Obama IRS scandal, which include the IRS’s invasive targeting of Tea Party and conservative organizations, the leaking of the confidential taxpayer information, and audits of conservative donors and activists.

Via Judicial Watch, Bill Killian, the US Attorney for the Eastern district of Tennessee, just wants Americans to know what the consequences for free speech might be. Special speakers for the event will be Bill Killian, U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Tennessee, and Kenneth Moore, special agent in charge of the FBI’s Knoxville Division. Sponsor of the event is the American Muslim Advisory Council of Tennessee — a 15-member board formed two years ago when the General Assembly was considering passing legislation that would restrict those who worship Sharia Law, which is followed by Muslims. Killian and Moore...

Surprise, surprise the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has rejected the media’s requests for the immigration records of the Boston Marathon bombers, likely because they contain information that could further embarrass the government. After all, the feds ignored critical warnings from Russia about the older Chechen terrorist (Tamerlan Tsarnaev) and the FBI even kept the information from Boston Police, which could have kept a closer eye on him. Additionally, Judicial Watch reported days after the bombings that Tamerlan, 26, and not a U.S. citizen could have been deported years ago after a criminal arrest. Adding insult to injury, the other...

Steven T. Miller, the acting IRS commissioner who managed the division that has admitted targeting anti-Obama Tea Party groups, was one of several agents who investigated anti-Clinton organizations including Judicial Watch during that Democrat´s administration, according to court documents and interviews. Miller, who headed the IRS Services and Enforcement Division from 2009 until the end of last year, is named in court documents as part of a trio of Internal Revenue Service officials who allegedly characterized the 1998-2001 investigation of Judicial Watch as politically motivated.

Buried deep in the colossal immigration bill that’s floating around Congress is an obscure little section that rewrites the current immigrant visa waiting list to allow millions to cut in front of the line via new categories of family-sponsored immigrants. As if it weren’t bad enough that the measure, known as the Schumer-Rubio bill after the New York Democrat and Florida Republican pushing it, already offers 11 million illegal aliens instant amnesty. A nonpartisan group dedicated to researching legal and illegal immigration into the U.S., discovered the provision in the course of dissecting the monstrous legislation, which at last count...