Free Republic

A government watchdog group is seeking clarity into how an election regulation is enforced on government employees. Cause of Action sent a letter to several federal agencies on Monday asking how the Hatch Act, which prohibits federal employees from engaging in partisan campaign activity in their official capacity, applies to the subordinate who supported Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Kathleen Sebelius when she violated the law last year. Sebelius broke the Hatch Act last year when she endorsed President Barack Obama and another Democratic candidate while speaking to a gay rights group in North Carolina in her...

WEST HARTFORD — U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., Friday defended a message sent from his office on Thursday asking for a small donation to continue his work on fighting for gun violence reduction.

Hillary Clinton is running for President in 2016. Her silence gives it away. Rand Paul made his intentions clear by boisterously launching a filibuster against CIA appointee John Brennan and making a stand on immigration. He has been on the cover of newspapers and magazines, making proactive speeches and commenting on the statements of others. He is, clearly, positioning for a run in 2016. Hillary Clinton is taking a different, quieter, approach. [Snip] Clinton knows what the campaign will look like and how hard it will be. She knows she could retire and speak on talk shows and conference...

President Obama will formally inaugurate Organizing for Action, his newly-formed independent advocacy group, with a headline speech Wednesday night before the group's Founders' Summit in Washington. Obama's appearance, confirmed to ABC News by an OFA official, will be his first in-person with the group's core team of advisers, donors and grassroots organizers since its formation following the 2012 election. It comes as Obama seeks to re-energize his expansive grassroots campaign infrastructure around top second-term priorities - from new gun-control measures to comprehensive immigration reform and a plan to replace sequester - and cement the foundation for his presidential legacy. The...

Washington -- Rep. Dan Maffei, after winning the most expensive campaign on record for a Central New York congressional seat, says it is time to take the big money out of politics. Despite the millions of dollars in special-interest money spent on his behalf, Maffei says he's ready to change the system and back it up with tough legislation.

<p>Mayor Bloomberg - who has already cracked down on smoking, trans fats, salt and super-sized drinks - is embarking on a new crusade: preventing New Yorkers from going deaf.</p> <p>Hizzoner's health officials are planning a social-media campaign to warn young people about the risk of losing their hearing from listening to music at high volume on personal MP3 players, The Post has learned.</p>

Tweets on Elaine Chao: 'They will not get away with attacking my wife,' Mitch McConnell says WINCHESTER, Ky. -- Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell lambasted a liberal group on Saturday for criticizing the Asian heritage of his wife, former Labor Secretary Elaine Chao, calling its Twitter messages "racial slurs" and "the ultimate outrage." "They will not get away with attacking my wife in this campaign," McConnell told about 100 home-state supporters at a Republican dinner in Winchester. "This woman has the ear of @McConnellPress — she's his #wife," the group Kentucky Progress tweeted on Feb. 14. "May explain why your...

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius violated federal law by campaigning for President Obama on the taxpayers’ dime, but now that initial violation has the Democratic National Committee and an HHS aide in the spotlight for related alleged infractions. A nonprofit government watchdog filed a complaint alleging that the DNC violated campaign finance law by misreporting the money it spent to reimburse HHS for Sebelius’ trip in a way that masked the fact that the Hatch Act, a ban on political campaigning by government employees working in their official capacity,

First Lady Michelle Obama posted this new video that details the relaunch of President Barack Obama's campaign organization, Obama for America. The new organization is called, "Organizing For Action." Calling it the "next phase of our movement for change," the First Lady says that it will aim to train the next generation of grassroots organizers and leaders, and organize around local issues in American communities.

"In a sour footnote to President Barack Obama's sweeping electoral victory last November, many of his campaign staffers have been shut out of the inaugural festivities, more than a dozen of them complained to BuzzFeed Monday."

<p>Commission for reporting violations related to a set of donations received during the final days of the campaign.</p> <p>The fines are among the largest ever levied on a presidential campaign by the FEC and stem from a series of missing notices for nearly 1,200 contributions totaling nearly $1.9 million.</p>

In its latest campaign against Habayit Hayehudi (Jewish Home), the Likud is planning to attack the candidates on its list which are considered to be more "extreme". Israeli mainstream media has been criticizing the Jewish Home for supposedly "hiding" some of its candidates and refusing to allow them to be interviewed, while giving other candidates who "sound better" on television much more airtime. Now, the Likud is planning to use this criticism and point out the "hidden" candidates to the public. These are mostly candidates from the Tekuma party's list, headed by Uri Ariel, which merged with the Jewish Home...

NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) — CBS 2 has learned Metropolitan Transportation Authority Chairman Joe Lhota will resign his post and run for mayor of New York City in 2013. Highly placed sources in Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s administration and the MTA board told CBS 2′s Dick Brennan that Lhota will step down Friday and is expected to join the mayoral race for the Republican nomination.

After Jesse Jackson Jr. quit, Sandi changed campaign reportsBy Natasha Korecki Political Reporter December 14, 2012 12:32AM Five days after Jesse Jackson Jr. resigned from Congress, his wife, Ald. Sandi Jackson, filed a series of amendments to her ward committee’s campaign fund, revealing dozens of previously undisclosed transactions that went back three years. That includes at least $13,000 in previously undisclosed transfers from her husband’s congressional account into her ward organization account, a Sun-Times review of campaign records show. Among the undisclosed transactions shown in the amended reports were monthly transfers of $1,250 to his wife’s 7th Ward Independent Political...

Former House Speaker and Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich said the current GOP would be “incapable of competing” against Hillary Clinton should she run in 2016. Gingrich on NBC’s “Meet the Press” called Clinton a “very formidable” person who is married to “the most popular Democrat in the country.” “If [the Republicans'] competitor in ’16 is going to be Hillary Clinton, supported by Bill Clinton and presumably, a still relatively popular President Barack Obama, trying to win that will be truly the Super Bowl. And the Republican Party today is incapable of competing at that level,” Gingrich said.

President Barack Obama “guarantees a permanent war” with Republicans by forcing the party’s hand on the issue of income-tax hikes on top earners, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich said Sunday. “The president won,” Gingrich said on NBC’s Meet the Press. “The president has a very clear, simple position. He wants to prove he can dominate, and he proves he can dominate by getting the rates up, and he has a veto pen.” …

The Romney campaign spent an estimated $356 million between January 1, 2011 and October 17, 2012 in its unsuccessful effort to defeat incumbent President Barack Obama. According to Federal Election Commission documents, as reported by OpenSecrets.org, $33 million of this amount was paid to two consulting firms with ties to key staffers at both the Romney campaign and the RNC. Targeted Victory LLC, a Minnesota company with executive offices in Virginia, was paid $17 million for digital communications by the Romney campaign. FLS Connect LLC, an Arizona corporation with headquarters in Minnesota, was paid $16 million for voter contact and...

We are used to Democrats who use campaigns and government jobs as their private piggy banks. A Republican campaign would be the last place you would expect to see wild spending on questionable projects. Yet in the Romney campaign that seems to have happened and this might have cost him the election. What is going on?

Bill Clinton asks for help with Hillary’s 2008 campaign debtBy BOBBY CERVANTES | Updated: 11/28/12 7:22 PM EST Bill Clinton isn’t finished campaigning just yet. Amid speculation that Hillary Clinton might make a run for the presidency in 2016, her husband is taking another swing at shrinking her lingering 2008 campaign debt, which totals $73,000 as of Sept. 30. In an email to supporters Wednesday, Bill Clinton offered a chance to spend a day with him if donors chipped in to drive down his wife’s campaign debt before Dec. 6.

It looks like former Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr.(D-Ill.), who resigned Wednesday, is trying to take any potential heat off of his wife, Ald. Sandi Jackson (7th)—who is also his campaign manager.I’m told that Sandi Jackson has hired her own legal representation as her husband’s lawyers try to work out a deal in the ongoing federal probe of his campaign finances.........According to campaign finance disclosures, Sandi Jackson has been drawing $5,000-a-month payments from her husband’s main campaign fund through her firm, J. Donnatella and Associates. Her company has been on the Jackson campaign payroll for years, and it is located, according...