Free Republic

• “Lobbyists and career politicians today make up what I call the Washington Cartel. … [They] on a daily basis are conspiring against the American people. … [C]areer politicians’ ears and wallets are open to the highest bidder.” — Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, in 2015.

Black people in Pittsburgh were feeling poorly about crime: Too many of them were in the news accused of killing, robbing, assaulting, jacking, shooting, stealing, rioting, breaking, burgling, harassing, intimidating, threatening, fighting, throwing, running, stoning, smoking, drinking, escaping, drugging, firing, and destroying. So in 2011, black leaders got together to do something about it: Not stop the crime. Just stop reporters from letting us know about it. Because it is a little-known fact of psychology that drawing attention to black crime actually causes more black crime -- which draws more attention, which creates more crime. And on and on until...

Outraged protesters stood outside of the apartment complex where the state trooper who arrested Sandra Bland lives.  The DPS officer is currently on desk duty but protesters say that’s not enough.  They say the investigation is moving too slow and they want the trooper not only fired but indicted. On a day when it felt like it couldn’t get any hotter, Quanell X and protesters lit their own fire. “I'm a speak frank to you, in that cops mind he was saying to himself who does the N-word think she is talking to me like this. And that's when he...

President Obama said Saturday he will use the power of the federal government to pressure communities to integrate low-income minorities into affluent areas. Obama said his administration is implementing a new rule that will require communities to frequently review the racial and socio-economic makeup of local neighborhoods and regularly report the results to the federal government. "Just a few weeks ago, the Supreme Court ruled that policies segregating minorities in poor neighborhoods, even unintentionally, are against the law," Obama said, referencing a ruling on the Fair Housing Act largely ignored by the media due to attention on the Obamacare and...

EAST ORANGE — A political battle is raging long past Election Day. Surveillance video has surfaced of an apparent physical fight between an Essex County political leader and a poll worker at a polling location in East Orange on primary day, June 2. According to a CBS News report, LeRoy Jones, the head of the Essex County Democratic Committee, is seen in the video throwing several punches at 74-year-old poll worker Bill Graves. According to the report, Graves is legally blind.

Baltimore mayor fires police chief after sharp rise in violence By Associated Press BALTIMORE — Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake said Wednesday that she has fired Police Commissioner Anthony Batts, 2½ months after riots broke out in the city following the death of a man who was injured in police custody. Rawlings-Blake announced her decision in a three-paragraph news release that also noted she has named Deputy Police Commissioner Kevin Davis as interim commissioner. The mayor scheduled a news conference with Davis for later Wednesday afternoon. Rawlings did not give a reason, but the move comes amid a spike in the...

<p>Political commentator and author Ann Coulter was signing copies of her new book Adios America: The Left’s Plan to Turn our Country into a Third World Hellhole at a Barnes and Noble Tuesday night when the calm was shattered by protesters inside the store.</p>

Xavier Becerra ✔ @RepBecerra Thumbs up to @Macys for telling @realDonaldTrump “#yourefired." 2:24 PM - 2 Jul 2015 But that’s not enough. Rep. Becerra wants to make sure there’s hell toupée for Trump, and he’s asking for your help to root out companies not giving The Donald a public spanking: Xavier Becerra ✔ @RepBecerra But why aren't more companies acting responsibly and following suit? Let's keep tabs on those who stay silent! 2:25 PM - 2 Jul 2015

Officials with the Department of State threatened to call security Monday on a Washington Free Beacon reporter who was attempting to report on a briefing held by senior Obama administration figures in Vienna on the eve of an expected nuclear agreement with Iran. Two State Department officials booted the Free Beacon from a room where Wendy Sherman, the undersecretary of state for political affairs, was talking to reporters, despite the Free BeaconÂ’s being credentialed by the Austrian government for the ongoing Iranian nuclear talks. Western observers present in Vienna for the talks linked the State DepartmentÂ’s behavior to jitters over...

At the Treasury Department, the memo came down from the deputy executive secretary, Wally Adeyemo, in December of 2009. Going forward, the memo stated, “sensitive information” requested under the Freedom of Information Act was to be reviewed not only by career FOIA officials but also by a committee of political appointees... before release. And it didn’t just happen at Treasury, but at the IRS and the Department of Homeland Security, too. Current and former FOIA attorneys at these agencies say documents requested by the media have come in for special scrutiny, called “sensitive review,” often holding up release for weeks...

Justice Department’s national security chief cites six-month transition period in the USA Freedom Act as a reason to turn the bulk surveillance spigot back on.The (Obama administration) has asked a secret surveillance court to ignore a federal court that found bulk surveillance illegal and to once again grant the National Security Agency the power to collect the phone records of millions of Americans for six months. The legal request, filed nearly four hours after Barack Obama vowed to sign a new law banning precisely the bulk collection he asks the secret court to approve, also suggests that the administration may...

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder has crafted a new policy that would allow government officials to seize bank accounts involved in financial structuring schemes prior to filing criminal charges against the individuals who own those accounts. The new policy stems from the Justice Department’s ongoing review of its asset forfeiture program. The policy is aimed at preventing criminals from making a series of currency transactions under a certain monetary threshold in order to evade reporting the transaction to the authorities, according to a department statement. Those types of transactions typically lead to “the most serious illegal banking transactions” and occur...

It should go without saying that the U.S. attorney general, as our nation’s chief law-enforcement officer, is expected to wield the Justice Department’s full powers to fight for those victimized by crime. It should also go without saying that federal prosecutors routinely make deals with criminals to secure convictions for other, larger crimes, or to save themselves time and the taxpayers’ money — and that those criminals’ victims sometimes come out the losers in such deals. Yet new evidence suggests that Loretta Lynch, President Obama’s pick to take DOJ’s reins from Eric Holder, may have gone beyond the accepted norms...

Protesters shut down I-93 Northbound at East Milton Square and I-93 Southbound in the Medford-Somerville area during the Thursday morning commute causing major traffic backups, according to Massachusetts State police. State Police reported that 17 people from the Medford protest were under arrest and being processed. The protest was organized by the Boston contingent of the group Black Lives Matter, according to an Associated Press report. In a statement posted Thursday morning on the group’s Facebook page, the protest was held “to ‘disrupt business as usual’ and protest police and state violence against Black people.” The protesters have been removed...

Top GOP oversight official Rep. Darrell Issa said in a May 9 letter that if a top Obama aide again declines to testify on a draft executive order requiring political disclosure from government contractors, Issa will be “required to consider the use of compulsory process” – a congressional subpoena.If Issa subpoenas OMB director Jacob Lew to testify about the draft order, which Republicans warn could allow the administration to politicize the government contracting process, it would be the first time the GOP has subpoenaed the Obama White House since they obtained the authority in taking over the House in January.A...

In 2011, concerned about the growing debt crisis, Standard & Poor, the venerable credit rating firm, downgraded the U.S. bond rating for the first time from “Triple-A” to “AA-plus,” a move that sent shockwaves through the financial markets raising troubling questions about the government’s growing debt. The move hit a nerve with a White House gearing up for a massive re-election campaign. Then Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner called the Chairman of McGraw Hill, the owners of S&P, declaring that the government would hold S&P “accountable” and their conduct would be “looked at very carefully.” Geithner wasn’t bluffing. The Obama Administration...

On Tuesday afternoon, CNN obtained and aired footage of Michael Brown‘s stepfather Louis Head shouting “Burn this bitch down” through tears in the immediate aftermath of the grand jury’s decision not to indict Officer Darren Wilson for Brown’s death.

During the Bush administration, national Democrat leaders threatened to kill the ABC network's broadcast license if a miniseries unfavorable to the Clinton administration wasn't censored to satisfy Democrats. ABC complied.

“Regardless of whatever else happens, I know I did the best I could under the circumstances and am not sorry for anything I did,” former IRS official Lois Lerner told POLITICO in an exclusive interview released today. In the piece, Lerner portrays herself as being unfairly attacked by the very groups she spent years inappropriately targeting. Lerner, for her part, assumes she is at the center of the storm because “I was the person who announced it. I assume the other part of it is because I declined to talk, and once I declined to talk, they could say anything they...

Michael Brown's father's words at his funeral: ‘I couldn’t protect you but we love you’ Anger smoldered Monday in St. Louis during the memorial service for the 18-year-old gunned down by a Ferguson, Mo., police officer. ‘We will chant Mike's name, and it's gonna shake the heavens,’ one cousin said. Two weeks after Michael Brown was gunned down by a police officer, thousands turned out Monday to bid him farewell. And the anger over the way Brown died continued to smolder in the sanctuary of the St. Louis church as his cousins poured out their grief. “I still have anger...