Free Republic

Telecom executive Donald H. Gips raised a big bundle of cash to help finance his friend Barack Obama’s run for the presidency. Gips, a vice president of Colorado-based Level 3 Communications LLC, delivered more than $500,000 in contributions for the Obama war chest, while two fellow senior company executives collected at least $150,000 more. After the election, Gips was put in charge of hiring in the Obama White House, helping to place loyalists and fundraisers in many key positions. Then in mid-2009, the new president named him ambassador to South Africa. Level 3 Communications, in which Gips retained stock, meanwhile...

Former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty remains little-known beyond his home state, but he has begun to line up wealthy donors, a critical constituency. Even as he draws low single-digit support in early polls, Mr. Pawlenty has amassed a substantial roster of well-connected GOP donors and fund-raisers in his quest for the Republican presidential nomination. Their preference for Mr. Pawlenty could pose a challenge to his GOP rival, Mitt Romney, the former Massachusetts governor who has used experience as a 2008 candidate and background as a private-equity investor to build what is widely regarded as the largest network of high-impact fund-raisers...

Paul Ryan wants to end ALL corporate welfare, and Obama's so-called proposal to reform the tax code will not end corporate welfare. It is a diversion to distract people from pointing out all the corporate welfare that he supports. Secondly, those corporations which receive corporate welfare (from the government through tax dollars) which Obama likes to euphemistically label "investments," may then have freed-up money to offset any tax increases to the heads of those corporations - through the shelling out of bonuses. As John Stossel and several other Libertarians (as well as conservatives and progressives) have reported, more money is...

When the White House announced the federal government would loan $465 million to Tesla, a California start-up company with plans to develop an all-electric sedan, President Obama called it an "historic opportunity to ensure that the next generation of fuel-efficient cars and trucks are made in America." The loan also represented a lucrative opportunity for Steve Westly, a major investor in the car company who had raised more than $500,000 for the president's campaign. In 2009, the U.S. Department of Energy lent more than half a billion dollars to companies backed by Westly's California venture capital firm. In 2010, the...

No phony businesses or great train escapes in this one, alas, but on the upside it’s much easier to follow the money. One HillRaiser suspected of laundering contributions through frontmen is a fluke; two is a pattern. When Hillary Rodham Clinton held an intimate fund-raising event at her Washington home in late March, Pamela Layton donated $4,600, the maximum allowed by law, to Mrs. Clinton’s presidential campaign. But the 37-year-old Ms. Layton says she and her husband were reimbursed by her husband’s boss for the donations. “It wasn’t personal money. It was all corporate money,” Mrs. Layton said outside her...

Clinton Campaign Vows To Check Contributions Solicited by Supporter BRISTOW, Va. -- When Hillary Rodham Clinton held an intimate fund-raising event at her Washington home in late March, Pamela Layton donated $4,600, the maximum allowed by law, to Mrs. Clinton's presidential campaign. But the 37-year-old Ms. Layton says she and her husband were reimbursed by her husband's boss for the donations. "It wasn't personal money. It was all corporate money," Mrs. Layton said outside her home here. "I don't even like Hillary. I'm a Republican." The boss is William Danielczyk, founder of a Washington-area private-equity firm and a major fund-raising...

A federal grand jury indicted two Virginia men on Wednesday for allegedly trying to illegally reimburse donors who gave to Hillary Clinton’s senate and presidential campaigns. The Department of Justice (DOJ) has accused the two men, William Danielczyk and Eugene Biagi, of paying back $186,600 in contributions to the senate and presidential campaign committees of a candidate for federal office, and obstructing the Federal Election Commission (FEC) and the FBI.

Took less than a month for former Huffington Post CEO Betsy Morgan and Managing Editor Scott Baker to go huffing and puffing all over The Blaze. The Blaze, now cutting a break for Code Pink in Cairo, should check in with writers Andrea Shea King and Kristinn Taylor who got it right (no pun intended). Is it HuffPo at the helm that is portraying Code Pink rabble rousers as Obama enemies? Note to Glenn Beck: Code Pink is not Global Citizen Barry Soetoro’s enemy. They are right up his wazoo. Big time.

12, 2008 EXCLUSIVE: Who is Mohammed Al-Churbaji?:; Islamic Terrorist "Mr. Mom" Mohammed Al-Churbaji, Dad of Obama Fundraiser Worked for Azzam, Bin Laden * How hard it is to get rid of known terrorists in our midst and how easy it is for a deported Al-Qaeda terrorist to return to America; * How corrupt U.S. embassy officials get away with re-admitting terrorists into the U.S.; * How easily terrorists and their families gain acceptance by our society, including the Barack Obama Presidential campaign; * How America's universities are not tools of moderation for Muslim foreigners, but breeding grounds for terrorist fraternization...

Let’s all go!

Amy Goodman of the Marxist Democracy Now! network reported yesterday on the arrest of a “leading Democratic donor” named Hassan Nemazee. Here is the story, in its entirety: Back in the United States, a leading Democratic donor has been arrested and charged with seeking to defraud the financial giant Citibank. Hassan Nemazee is accused of submitting forged documents to secure a $74 million loan. Nemazee has given at least $150,000 to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee since 2006 and supported several other leading Democratic politicians. Not much to sink your teeth into there. Could it be that Goodman is downplaying...

Like Capt. Renault in "Casablanca," I am shocked, shocked to discover that access peddling is going on in the Obama White House. Perks for deep-pocketed donors? Presidential meetings for sale? The stale Chicago odor of pay-for-play wafting from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue? Knock me over with a feather. Despite the president's claimed distaste for the campaign finance practice known as "bundling" (rounding up aggregate contributions from friends, business associates and employees), the House of Obama has been a campaign finance bundlers' paradise from Day One. A new report by Matthew Mosk of The Washington Times just confirms the gob-smackingly obvious: It's...

Many of the fake documents used by a leading Democratic Party fund-raiser to defraud HSBC and Citigroup Inc were made by his brother-in-law, U.S. prosecutors said on Friday. Authorities arrested and charged Shahin Kashanchi, brother-in-law of indicted fund-raiser Hassan Nemazee, who donated to the presidential campaigns of Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and other leading Democrats over the years. Nemazee pleaded not guilty on Wednesday in Manhattan federal court to defrauding a total of three banks -- Bank of America was the other -- out of $292 million in loan proceeds. "Based on e-mail traffic between Kashanchi and Nemazee, Kashanchi was...

A wealthy investment banker and prominent fundraiser for President Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and other top Democrats was arrested Tuesday on charges he lied to get a $74 million business loan that -- once confronted by authorities -- he hastily repaid. Prosecutors accused Hassan Nemazee of giving Citibank documents showing he owned millions of dollars in collateral. They said the documents were "fraudulent and forged." A Clinton spokesman didn't immediately return an e-mail message seeking comment. The chairman and chief executive of Manhattan-based Nemazee Capital Corp. served as national finance chairman for Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign in 2008, and later...

Ambassadors: Do patronage picks matter? Obama continues tradition — so far, more than half are political nominees By Domenico Montanaro Political Researcher NBC News WASHINGTON - American presidents rewarding top campaign fundraisers with plum ambassadorships has long been common practice for both Democrats and Republicans alike. But President Obama, who has vowed to “change the ways of Washington,” has not only continued this tradition of his predecessors, he has outpaced them. So far, 57% of Obama’s picks for ambassador positions — 34 of 60 — have been political appointees, or people not considered career Foreign Service, according to the American...

The candidate that claims to be the only presidential contender who doesn't take money from lobbyists is in fact the biggest recipient of lobby-related contributions. Barack Obama rakes in millions from law firms serving the interests of Wall Street, including the financial institutions that gave us the subprime lending crisis. Lawyers that work for firms that earn hundreds of millions of dollars for lobbying may technically not be lobbyists, but they share in their colleagues' earnings as influencers of Congress - a legal loophole that allows Obama to claim his hands are clean of lobby loot. The top contributors to...

The Edwards '08 Campaign for President has quietly refunded almost $4 million to individual contributors, a number of them, bundlers and big backers. This should be news to Warren Buffet who recently mused that Edwards' supporters should get together and file a class action suit. It seems another "class" has already had their contributions refunded--and it's not the "grassroots" little guys. We had no idea the campaign was handing out refunds until we happened to come across the information while perusing the site OpenSecrets.org and the data supplied to the Federal Election Commission by the Edwards' campaign. We were baffled,...

* The John Edwards' campaign has already refunded $3,831,398 to contributors--many who contributed the maximum of $2300. * 2,247 donors have already received money back from the John Edwards--many who are trial attorneys and political "bundlers"--and most received it back on March 24. * Refunds to small donors under $100 have accounted for only 1/5th of one percent, so far, according to Open Secrets.com. * The Edwards campaign still has $4,791,200 cash on hand, according to its July 31, 2008 filing. For any readers who gave money to the John Edwards' campaign and are now upset that perhaps that...

In an effort to cast himself as independent of the influence of money on politics, Senator Barack Obama often highlights the campaign contributions of $200 or less that have amounted to fully half of the $340 million he has collected so far. But records show that a third of his record-breaking haul has come from donations of $1,000 or more - a total of $112 million, more than the total of contributions in that category taken in by either Senator John McCain, his Republican rival, or Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, his opponent in the Democratic primaries. Behind those large donations...

Recently, prodded by a letter from campaign finance reform groups, and after the New York Times pointed out that the Obama campaign had not updated its bundler list for months, the Web site added a flotilla of names, along with each bundler's city and state. However, the Web site does not provide the bundlers' occupations or employers, although those should be readily available to the campaign from the bundlers' individual contributions.