Free Republic

Who Is Funding Barack Obama? by Paul Hollrah In a July 10 installment of “The World According to Barack,” we discussed Obama’s phenomenal fundraising juggernaut. Obama boasts of having built a contributor base of 1.5 million people, each contributing $5, $10, $20...or, as Obama assures us, “whatever they could afford.” Please do the math with me. The Obama campaign has disclosed that one-fourth, or $66.25 million of the $265 million reported as of May 31, 2008 (he has raised an additional $70 million during the month of June), came from those contributing $2,000, or more...which means that the remainder, or...

One of President Obama’s largest financial backers is a key executive at the largest Swiss bank in the world, complicating his criticism of presumptive Republican nominee Mitt Romney. Robert Wolf is president of Swiss financial giant UBS Investment Bank and chairman of UBS Americas. He has been one of Obama’s most prolific fundraisers dating back to 2006, when the former Senator from Illinois initiated his run for the White House. Wolf has bundled more than $500,000 for the president’s reelection, campaign records show. He is but one of many wealthy bankers Obama has turned to in an effort to win...

(Politico 44) — The staffer for DNC Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz who posted the controversial ‘Jewbag’ photo on her Facebook page in 2006 is no anonymous aide — but the daughter of Mark and Nancy Gilbert, two major Florida donors who have raised more than $500,000 for the Obama campaign. Danielle “Dani” Gilbert, according to party sources, was tapped by Wasserman Schultz to serve as a liaison to the Jewish community, even though party officials and people close to Obama told her that more senior Democrats were already handling those responsibilities. Wasserman Schultz has thus far refused to fire or...

A major contributor to President Barack Obama's re-election effort is accused of defrauding a businessman and impersonating a bank official. Donor Abake Assongba gave more than $50,000 to Obama this election season. But her past legal troubles, which include unpaid debts, are creating a new headache for Obama's campaign. The allegations were first reported Sunday by The Washington Post. ..

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama's re-election campaign identified its top fundraisers on Tuesday, including 61 people who each raised at least half a million dollars. Altogether, the more than 440 fundraisers collected at least $75 million to help Obama win a second term. Among them are embattled former New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine. Obama's campaign and the Democratic National Committee late last year returned $70,000 in contributions from Corzine and his wife following questions about the collapse of MF Global, the financial firm Corzine ran. Corzine is no longer raising money for the re-election, campaign officials said. The campaign...

The Center for Public Integrity released a new report on Obama’s 2012 bundlers yesterday: Dozens of Obama’s elite donors — many of them wealthy business figures — have been appointed to advisory panels and commissions that can play a role in setting government policy. Others have been invited to a range of exclusive White House briefings, holiday parties and splashy social events. And some have snagged lucrative government contracts that benefit their business interests or investment portfolios, a Center for Public Integrity investigation has found. Here’s the breakdown: At least 68 of 350 Obama bundlers for the 2012 election or...

File this one under culture of corruption. Obama supporters just can’t seem to stay out of trouble, can they? This latest scandal involves a former Tarheels basketball player and a $21 million bank fraud scheme. New York Daily News reports: Courtney Dupree was convicted of vastly overstating the billings of his Long Island City-based lighting company GDC Acquisitions in order to fraudulently obtain a loan from Amalgamated Bank.Dupree, 42, sat stone-faced as the verdict was read in Brooklyn Federal Court. He faces up to 30 years in prison and has to pay back at least $18 million. …Dupree, who attended...

What do you get when you mix Democratic fat-cat donations, Big Labor favors, pharmaceutical lobbying and Beltway business as usual? Answer: another toxic half-billion-dollar Barack Obama-approved crony deal. Move over, Solyndra. Here comes Siga-Gate. This latest Chicago-style payoff on your dime involves a dubious smallpox drug backed by a liberal billionaire investor, along with a former union boss who was one of the White House's most frequent visitors. They're the "1 percent" with 100 percent immunity from the selectively outraged Occupier mobs that purport to oppose partisan government bailouts and handouts to privileged corporations. Ronald Perelman is the New York...

The last time I checked, didn’t the Left call this sort of thing ‘crony capitalism?’ Over the last year, the Obama administration has aggressively pushed a $433-million plan to buy an experimental smallpox drug, despite uncertainty over whether it is needed or will work. Senior officials have taken unusual steps to secure the contract for New York-based Siga Technologies Inc., whose controlling shareholder is billionaire Ronald O. Perelman, one of the world’s richest men and a longtime Democratic Party donor. As you probably know, smallpox was eradicated in the wild decades ago: mostly because it was a genuinely terrifying threat...

The FBI rounded up a network of deep-cover Russian spies last year after the group came close to placing an agent near a Cabinet official in the Obama administration, a senior FBI counterspy said Monday as the bureau released once-secret documents on the case. ...U.S. officials said it was Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. Mr. Figliuzzi said in an interview that the FBI decided to end its more than 10-year-long counterspy investigation of the network because of concerns that the spies were “getting very close to their objective.” “These 10 Russian officers were sent to the U.S. on a...

Oklahoma billionaire George Kaiser has been in the headlines in recent months thanks to his role as a major investor in Solyndra LLC, the now-bankrupt California solar panel maker hailed by President Obama as a model for America's "clean energy future." Congress is investigating why the Obama administration gave Solyndra a $535 million loan guarantee despite multiple warnings from career bureaucrats and private sector investment experts that the company was a poor risk, lacked a realistic business model and was likely to go bankrupt as a result. Because Kaiser was a campaign "bundler" - an individual who collects contributions to...

Obama Fundraiser Llnked To Loan Program That Aided Solyndra The revelation is likely to spur new inquiries about the solar company's political influence. Separately, California lawmakers seek investigation of a state tax break the firm received. By Matea Gold and Stuart Pfeifer September 17, 2011 The White House faced mounting political complications as a second top fundraiser for President Obama was linked to a federal loan guarantee program that backed a now-bankrupt Silicon Valley solar energy company, and as two California lawmakers called for investigations of a state tax break granted to the firm. Steve Spinner, who helped monitor the...

In this May 26, 2010 file photo, President Barack Obama, with Solyndra Chief Executive Officer Chris Gronet, looks at a solar panel, during a tour of Solyndra, Inc., a solar panel manufacturing facility, in Fremont, Calif. Solyndra received a $535 million loan from the U.S. government has announced layoffs of 1,100 workers and plans to file for bankruptcy. (WaPo) Top Obama bundler George Kaiser made multiple visits to the White House in the months before the company was granted a $535 million loan from the government. iWatch News reported, via Free Republic: The i Watch News investigation confirmed that at...

Solyndra - The Obama connection I wrote about the solar panel manufacturer Solyndra last week; "Government Investment Disaster in the Works" I highlighted all of the negatives that the company was facing. It was pretty clear to me that that company was facing trouble. But I had no idea that they would file Chapter 11 the very next day. (Sometimes you just get lucky) I also made note of some scuttlebutt that George Kaiser (Oklahoma oil billionaire) was involved with Solyndra. I have been looking for a confirmation of this. Kaiser is an important link in this story. He is...

Solyndra, the solar-cell company whose collapse last week triggered a national debate over green jobs, filed its bankruptcy papers Monday, listing $859 million in assets and $784 million in secured loans. The company's biggest lender was the federal government, which loaned Solyndra $528 million in 2009 to build a new factory near its Fremont headquarters. As part of an effort to boost renewable power companies, the government offered Solyndra as much as $535 million for the project, but the factory cost slightly less to build than expected. The government will not, however, be the first creditor in line during Solyndra's...

The Obama administration bypassed procedural steps meant to protect taxpayers as it hurried to approve an energy loan guarantee to a politically-connected California solar power startup, ABC News and the Center for Public Integrity's iWatch News have learned …The Energy Department in March 2009 announced its intention to award Solyndra Inc. a $535 million loan guarantee before receiving final copies of outside reviews typically used to vet such deals. ...The loan guarantee, the administration's first for a clean energy project, benefited a company whose prime financial backers include Oklahoma oil billionaire George Kaiser, a "bundler" of campaign donations. Kaiser raised...

Despite the recent public lashing President Obama gave millionaires and billionaires, in private, Team Obama is once again diving into the pockets of the super rich to fund its campaign. With the 2012 campaign barely under way, Obama has already raised some $35 million from the biggest donors -- so-called 'bundlers' who collect money by the truckload from the wealthy elite. "A bundler is someone who collects checks from other people," said Susan Estrich, a former Democratic campaign manager. "They may be people who work for him, who hired him as a consultant or in many cases, want to do...

The campaign fundraising efforts of President Obama raised $86 million in the past three months from 500,000 people — but at least $35 million of it can be traced to just 244 well-connected supporters who collected contributions from wealthy friends. Just 634 donations from people giving $30,000 or more to the Obama Victory Fund comprise $23 million, while the 1,335 donations the fund received from those giving $250 add up to about $336,000, a Washington Times analysis shows. The campaign has branded itself as a new type of political operation and touted its reliance on a grass-roots network of everyday...

The campaign fundraising efforts of President Obama raised $86 million in the past three months from 500,000 people — but at least $35 million of it can be traced to just 244 well-connected supporters who collected contributions from wealthy friends. Just 634 donations from people giving $30,000 or more to the Obama Victory Fund comprise $23 million, while the 1,335 donations the fund received from those giving $250 add up to about $336,000, a Washington Times analysis shows. The campaign has branded itself as a new type of political operation and touted its reliance on a grassroots network

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama's campaign team has signed up an early wave of elite fundraisers who have collected at least $34.95 million combined since April, helping bankroll the president's re-election bid. The Obama campaign on Friday voluntarily disclosed its list of 244 individuals and couples who serve as "bundlers," often wealthy, well-connected donors who raise campaign cash from friends and business associates. The campaign has emphasized its more than 550,000 donors and note that Obama does not take money from political action committees or Washington lobbyists. But the list underscores the role of high-dollar bundlers who helped Obama...