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Democratic National Committee files motion to intervene in RNC v. FEC WASHINGTON, Jan. 29 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Today the Democratic National Committee announced that it filed a motion to intervene in the case of the Republican National Committee v. FEC, in which the RNC is seeking to dismantle the soft money provisions of the bi-partisan McCain Feingold campaign reform act (BCRA) of 2002. After a bruising defeat in November 2008, the RNC filed suit in the District of Columbia, challenging the constitutionality of the central tenet of BCRA - the ban on national party soft money. In its suit, the RNC...

Elite Obama Donors Receive Early Gifts and Privileges from Obama While Under Senate Investigation and After Accepting Millions in Taxpayer Paid Bailout So many of the Elite Obama Donors arrived at Dulles International Airport in their personal private jets that an active runway at Dulles International Airport had to be shut down and then converted into a make-do parking lot. * * * * * Surprisingly no PETA, Global Warming, nor Code Pink protesters are seen as the Elite Obama Donors arrive in chauffeur driven stretch limousines dressed in their finest furs. * * * * * Their gilded...

Nearly 100 wealthy families and power couples contributed at least $100,000 each to help Barack Obama over the past two years, creating an elite set of donors to whom the president-elect repeatedly turned in financing his campaign, transition and inauguration, a Washington Post analysis shows. As inaugural donations become public, a list of Obama's most loyal backers has emerged...The families gave to as many as five committees, records show, and 27 of the 94 families also bundled money from others, collecting millions of dollars on top of their personal donations. Among the supporters were well-known families such as the Rockefellers,...

Sometime early next year, the six commissioners who run the Federal Election Commission will face an interesting dilemma--whether to approve a "for cause" audit of the presidential campaign of a sitting president, Barack Obama. From a legal standpoint, this should be an easy vote. Serious issues were raised in numerous media reports chronicling the Obama campaign's probable violations of federal law. If the career staff at the FEC follow the ordinary, regulatory model of investigations, they will recommend such an audit to the commissioners. However, the odds are that the three Democratic commissioners will be under enormous pressure to vote...

WSJ: Obama Breaks Pledge on Inauguration Donations Friday, January 9, 2009 12:14 PM By: Jim Meyers A full 90 percent of donations to fund Barack Obama’s Jan. 20 inauguration have come from well-heeled fundraisers — including Wall Street executives whose companies have received federal bailout money. A total of 207 fundraisers have collected $24.8 million of the $27.3 million in donations disclosed by Obama through Thursday, according to an analysis by Public Citizen commissioned by The Wall Street Journal. Slightly more than 2,000 donors accounted for the $27.3 million raised, but 378 of those people each contributed the maximum $50,000...

Clinton Helping Clinton Retire Debt Clinton Foundation Business Helps Reduce Hillary Clinton's Remaining Campaign Debt By RICK KLEIN Dec. 24, 2008 — Sen. Hillary Clinton's in-the-red campaign committee has found an innovative way to pay down a slice of its debt -- and is getting help from President Clinton's foundation, among other groups, in making it happen. The William J. Clinton Foundation this week became the latest outside group to buy access to the vast e-mail list compiled by the New York senator's campaign. Political insiders believe the list is second only to President-elect Barack Obama's in its size and...

There is now growing evidence that Sen. Barack Obama bought the White House by using illegal and fraudulent fundraising, but that's a story you won't read in the mainstream media. You will read about it here today. While that story of Obama election law violations is still developing, what is the mainstream media reporting on? The New York Times isn't interested in election fraud ... if committed by Sen. Obama and the Democrats. So it is using its resources to investigate the amount of money the McCain campaign spent on hair stylists for Gov. Sarah Palin. (New York Times, Dec. 6,...

...Obama reported raising $104 million in more than five weeks immediately before and after Election Day. It was his second biggest fundraising period and a fitting coda to a successful presidential bid that shattered fundraising records. ...Obama exceeded the combined finances of the two major parties' nominees four years ago. George W. Bush and John Kerry pulled in a total of $653 million in the 2004 primary and general election campaigns, including federal public financing money. Obama's prowess at attracting money, one of the many characteristics that defined his campaign, could well spell the end of a 30-year experiment in...

(CNSNews.com) – It was widely reported that Barack Obama’s historic presidential win was fueled by an army of small donors, often contributing $5 and $10, at an unheard of rate in American history, but a recent study shows that Obama’s small donor base – and possibly reports of unparalleled youth-voter turnout – was more myth than reality. The Campaign Finance Institute (CFI) study says that 26 percent of donors to Obama’s presidential campaign gave $200 or less, the definition of a small donation. That’s compared to 25 percent for President George W. Bush’s 2004 reelection campaign. Most of the contributions...

The State of California is investigating the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints because they helped to defend true marriage as between one man and one woman. The Fair Political Practices Commission (FPPC) was created by the Political Reform Act of 1974, itself a ballot initiative passed by California voters as Proposition 9. It is now being used as a tool to persecute those who defend marriage, wielded by a savvy ex political consultant who does not like the position taken by the Church or the results of the latest Proposition 8 initiative...“Californians Against Hate was established in...

A state appeals court in San Francisco has upheld a San Mateo County Superior Court sentence of three years in prison for a former political fundraiser who was a fugitive for 15 years. Norman Hsu, 57, was sentenced in January for a 1992 no-contest plea to a charge of grand theft in an investment scheme. County prosecutors said Hsu operated a so-called Ponzi scheme, by soliciting investments in a purported latex glove company and paying returns to early investors with funds from later investors. Prosecutors said he defrauded about 20 victims of nearly $1 million. After pleading no contest to...

Abstract: The runoff for a U.S. Senate seat in Georgia is providing a stark example of how candidates in the 2008 election have been able to skirt campaign-finance limits -- without actually breaking the law. Federal campaign-finance law limits individuals to donating $2,300 to a candidate per election. Yet Republicans and Democrats are soliciting donations more than 10 times that amount for the Dec. 2 runoff in Georgia. GOP fund-raisers are asking people to give as much as $65,500 toward incumbent Sen. Saxby Chambliss's campaign, while Democrats are seeking donations up to $30,800 for challenger Jim Martin. So how are...

Elections: This year the problems are in Minnesota. Four years ago there were issues in Ohio and Washington. And 2000 was a near-disaster in Florida. Our current system for choosing leaders is in need of change.The problems, of course, weren't limited to those locations. They are widespread. Given that we are a growing nation of more than 300 million people with roughly 170 million voters spread over 6 million square miles, it should be no surprise that we experience irregularities. When the 2008 election was predicted to be one massive mess, no one was shocked Recognition of our great size...

WASHINGTON — John McCain’s close friend and ally from South Carolina, fellow Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham, will be on hand in Chicago Monday as McCain meets with his former rival, President-elect Barack Obama. Also attending will be Obama’s new chief of staff, Rep. Rahm Emanuel, D-Ill. In an interview Friday, Graham said Emanuel asked for the meeting about a week ago. “We were talking about some things that we could work together on,” Graham said.

The Nevada Democratic Party and its affiliated unions did a great job turning out voters for the Nov. 4 general election and placing in the hands of many of those voters endorsement sheets "recommending" how they might vote -- all the way down the ballot to the supposedly "non-partisan" elections for judgeships, School Board, etc. The Democratic Party also had huge success with its sleazy million-dollar direct-mail campaign against Nevada state Sens. Joe Heck and Bob Beers, who they targeted based on growing Democratic registrations in Senate districts 5 and 6 -- the overall goal being to seat enough Democrats...

Dahlia Lithwick, a Slate senior editor, is newly miffed at the constant Obama fundraising emails she's received. Oh, she didn't mind them as the campaign was going on, she says, but now that Big "O" is fairly elected, Lithwick is tired of them. One gets the feeling, of course, that this has been building in her for some time -- a sneaking dread mounting with each demand for cash. She even ends her Slate piece telling Obama that as far as she is concerned he should consider himself "cutoff" from her wallet. Too bad she seems completely clueless that his...

WASHINGTON – The Supreme Court will hear an appeal from a conservative group that wanted to promote its anti-Hillary Clinton movie without complying with a landmark campaign finance law. The justices, in an order Friday, said they will review a lower court ruling that the 90-minute "Hillary: The Movie" was clearly intended to influence people to vote against Clinton in her run for the presidency. The movie was made by Citizens United.

The Republican Party will file federal lawsuits Thursday seeking to overthrow the McCain-Feingold federal campaign finance regulations, Republican National Committee Chairman Robert M. "Mike" Duncan revealed Wednesday night at a private dinner with the nation's Republican governors. The move is considered a slap in the face of the Republican Party's failed 2008 presidential candidate, Sen. John McCain of Arizona, who was dramatically outspent by Democrat Barack Obama, and of President Bush, who signed McCain-Feingold into law in 2002. "We will bring two federal suits tomorrow to strengthen the Republican Party," Mr. Duncan told The Washington Times. Mr. Duncan said one...

The Republican National Committee's decision today to file suit in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, challenging the constitutionality of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act, is a clear signal that it is concerned about its ability to raise money under the current system.

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, who dipped into his own deep pockets to help finance his presidential bid, has directed $5,000 from his “Free and Strong America” political action committee to aid the recount effort of Senator Norm Coleman of Minnesota. Mr. Coleman, the Republican incumbent, is locked in a tight race with his Democratic opponent Al Franken. Though the initial vote tally showed Mr. Coleman ahead by 725 votes, as counties double checked their figures over the last week that margin has thinned even more. As of Monday, just over 200 votes separated the two challengers. The vote totals...

The Federal Election Commission is unlikely to conduct a potentially embarrassing audit of how Barack Obama raised and spent his presidential campaign’s record-shattering windfall, despite allegations of questionable donations and accounting that had the McCain campaign crying foul. Adding insult to injury for Republicans: The FEC is obligated to complete a rigorous audit of McCain’s campaign coffers, which will take months, if not years, and cost McCain millions of dollars to defend. Obama is expected to escape that level of scrutiny mostly because he declined an $84 million public grant for his campaign that automatically triggers an audit and because...

The Federal Election Commission is unlikely to conduct a potentially embarrassing audit of how Barack Obama raised and spent his presidential campaign’s record-shattering windfall, despite allegations of questionable donations and accounting that had the McCain campaign crying foul. Adding insult to injury for Republicans: The FEC is obligated to complete a rigorous audit of McCain’s campaign coffers, which will take months, if not years, and cost McCain millions of dollars to defend.

So how much did he raise and spend? How much genius does it take to run a campaign in which you can spend an unlimited amount against a canidate who was limited to $90 mil or so? I only ask this because our media seems unwilling to do so.

John McCain is a good and decent man. He has served his country with honor for his entire professional life. McCain’s concession speech struck a conciliatory tone that was fitting for the moment. John McCain is a graceful loser. Conservatives must learn from this if we want to regain power in two years. Next time, we must pick winners. Politics is a blood sport. As this election proved, there are no rules, save one: Win. Win on the power of your positions. Win on the superiority of your principles. Win by pointing out the flaws in your opponent. Win by...

Sure, there was the little matter of a presidential race to be settled. But tuning into MSNBC this evening, there was also the suspense of seeing whether another spat would break out between Keith Olbermann and Chris Matthews. And the two didn't disappoint. Renewing the on-air feud that broke out during the DNC, tonight's tussle left no doubt there's still plenty of bad blood between the pair. Matthews sparked the spat by suggesting that Obama had gone back on his word to take public financing for his campaign. When Olbermann sprang to Obama's defense, Matthews suggested that his, um, colleague...

Since it is apparently too much effort for the mainstream media (National Journal excepted) to be bothered to investigate what is potentially one of the largest campaign finance fraud scandals ever, we thought we’d set the table for them. Here’s a “Cheat Sheet” if you will on how the story broke and what the important issues are:....

Yesterday a federal judge suspended enforcement of a Florida law that the Institute for Justice calls "the broadest regulation of political speech in the nation." Under the law, any group that so much as mentions a candidate or ballot measure in a newsletter or online has to register with the state as an "electioneering communications organization," file regular spending reports, and disclose its donors. According to I.J., "There are almost 100 possible violations of the law, and failure to comply could lead to fines and jail time. The time and money required to navigate this bureaucratic red tape is too...

As Senator Barack Obama spends the last of hundreds of millions of dollars donated to his presidential campaign, the debate over how future campaigns will be financed is set to begin in earnest. The outcome promises to have a profound impact on future presidential runs, either upping the fund-raising ante irrevocably or forcing sweeping changes to prevent such large amounts of cash from coursing through campaigns again. But just as it has in this election cycle, it is quite likely that politics, as much as principle, will shape the jockeying. Democrats, in particular, who have traditionally supported limits on campaign...

Barack Obama's aunt, who lives in a Boston housing project, has made illegal donations to his campaign this year, the campaign acknowledges. The donations are against the law because Zeituni Onyango, a half-sister of Obama's father, is a citizen of Kenya, The Times of London reported. Campaign laws require all donors to U.S. political campaigns to be U.S. citizens. The Obama campaign said Onyango contributed a total of $265 and all the money would be returned, CNN reported. In his book, "Dreams From My Father," Obama described his meeting with Onyango in Kenya in 1988.

For the first time ever in U.S. history, the candidates for president have raised more than $1 billion. The candidates now file campaign finance reports monthly.

Among the many unasked and, thus, unanswered questions swirling around the most secretive presidential campaign in history, is the question of where that mountain of Obamessiah money is coming from? Barack Obama has raised more than $600 million thus far in his campaign! That explains why he reneged on his campaign pledge to use public funding like John McCain. He raised a reported $150 million just last month, mostly in small donations from undisclosed online donors. Since Obama, allegedly, represents the poorest, most unfortunate members of America society, where in the world is all that money coming from? “Where in...

Will the innovations never cease? Yesterday I described several, eh, unique capabilities pioneered by the Obama campaign in the area of campaign contributions. Among them, failure to do even basic credit-card validation; accepting untraceable prepaid credit cards; and sharing donor lists with suspect groups like ACORN. Heck, Barack's campaign wouldn't even share those lists with Hillary! Anyhow, an anonymous tipster mentioned that checking out the source code of the Obama donation website.

It seems like only a week ago that The Ticket was whining about Barack Obama whining that after raising $605 million through September to buy the presidency, he was asking all of us one last time for just $10 more for some reason. And we figured out that, October money aside, he'd have to spend $12.5 million a day just to unload September's haul by Nov. 4. The Democrat is already outspending the Republican by three and four-to-one, which if it was the other way around would surely be unconscionable. So last night Obama dumped several million bucks on several...

We've all seen the blogs claiming how Obama's website does not use any name or address verification to validate credit card charges, opening the door to fraudulent donations. Well fellow freepers, I just confirmed this myself. Last night I made a donation on Obama's website using my own credit card, but a totally bogus name, address, zipcode, and telephone number. His site did not challenge this information, and the transaction went through immediately and it posted today. His site also does not use the 3-digit security code on the back of the card, opening the door to more fraud from...

A former staffer for an affiliate of ACORN testified today that they were provided a "donor list" from the Barack Obama campaign. Anita Moncrief, a former Washington, D.C. staffer for Project Vote, which she described as a sister organization of ACORN, said her supervisor told her the list of campaign contributors came from the Obama campaign. Moncrief said she has a copy of a "development plan" that outlines how Obama contributors who had "maxed out" under federal contribution limits would be targeted to give to Project Vote, and that it was her job to identify such contributors. [ snip ]...

Full story here. Basically, he's allowing donation by use of "prepaid" credit cards, which allow people to donate anonymously and evade campaign funding limits.

You may have heard that Wednesday night Barack Obama will be on five different TV networks speaking directly to the American people. He bought 30 minutes of airtime from the different networks, a very expensive purchase. But hey, he can afford it. Barack Obama is loaded, way more loaded than John McCain, way more loaded than any presidential candidate has ever been at this stage of the campaign.

I have over 30 years of experience in investigating Credit Card Fraud and I can tell you, which you may or may not know, that the merchant acquirer that is conducting the collection of credit / debit card for the Obama campaign are responsible for the actions to be taken regarding the Address Verification System responses. The value of the AVS system is that the issuer of the card being used provides back to the merchant acquirer a response based upon the information provided during the authorization process. This response indicates to the merchant acquirer if the card information was...

Fox had an interesting story on this morning. Obama's campaign does not have AVS turned on for it's credit card processing on donations (AVS = Address Verification Service). So, in reality, there is no name validation or address verification tied to his donations, and a ton of money is pouring in from Europe and elsewhere. They can just type in anyname they want to, Fox listed some of the names, Adolf Hilter, William Ayers, Yogi Bear, and so on. Basically, the Obama campaign has put the US Presidency on his own EBay and Europe and others are saying "Okay, we...

My friends, If John McCain wins this election (and I pray he does), do you think he will have learned any lasting lessons about, oh, say the media, campaign finance regulations, reaching across the aisle....?Just wondering.

Politics wasn't invented to be clean, positive and reassuring. It was invented so that one group could beat the holy hell out of another. To do that, they need money. Lots of it. All told, candidates for the presidency have raised more than $1.5 billion since January 2007. This staggering sum is bound to arouse dismay in all high-minded people. And remember, we're not even counting those "independent" advocacy groups that are dredging the swamp for votes. But before we get all moralistic about the state of the union, let's put these numbers in perspective. Americans spend around $8 billion...

(CNN) – Presidential candidates are sold in much the same way a new product is: with an expensive, flashy, and ubiquitous television campaign. And according to advertising figures provided by Campaign Media Analysis Group, CNN's consultant on ad spending, Barack Obama's campaign has spent more money selling its candidate on television than most major brand name companies do selling their products. The Illinois senator's campaign is projected to have spent $250 million on ads in the last four months — a number that is equivalent to $750 million in a full year. Only AT&T, with a yearly advertising budget of...

Biden asked about campaign money

Thousands of political donations from outside the United States have helped fuel the White House bids of Sens. John McCain and Barack Obama, but both campaigns have lagged in disclosing the sources for much of their overseas campaign cash. Mr. McCain took more than a half-million dollars from donors listing residences outside the U.S. and its territories, according to Federal Election Commission (FEC) records. But his campaign failed to provide disclosures for about a third of those supporters, such as where they work, what they do for a living and in what city they live. While Mr. Obama's campaign reported...

Group says ads will air on Christian music stations in Michigan, Colorado, Ohio, Missouri, Indiana, Virginia and North Carolina.

Americans inherently sense that something is horrifically wrong in this election... The 2008 presidential campaign of Barack Obama is a case of truth being stranger than fiction and conspiracy being more than just theory. Hollywood couldn't write a more intriguing script of crime, corruption, deceit, cover-ups and international intrigue. Obama's cultish grip on his young ill-educated minions makes Jim Jones and David Koresh look like beginners.

A great example of conservative bloggers shouting the truth until somebody hears. Our post, Bombshell: Obama Neck Deep in Breaking Campaign Finance Scandal, went up on October 1, pulling from a Newsmax piece. I am sure somebody had it even earlier. The Post gives righty bloggers the hat tip. Concerns about anonymous donations seeping into the campaign began to surface last month, mainly on conservative blogs. Some bloggers described their own attempts to display the flaws in Obama's fundraising program, donating under such obviously phony names as Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein, and reported that the credit card transactions...

A federal judge appointed by President Bill Clinton broke judicial rules to contribute to Sen. Barack Obama's presidential campaign on multiple occasions. Utah's chief federal judge, Tena Campbell, violated the Judicial Code of Conduct and give hundreds of dollars to the Democratic Party nominee, the Salt Lake Tribune reported. Federal Election Commission campaign disclosures reveal Campbell described herself as a "lawyer" employed by the government and gave $100 to Obama's campaign Aug. 28, 2007. She gifted additional funds totaling $300. The seventh canon of the Judicial Code of Conduct states, "A judge should not … solicit funds for or pay...

The Democratic National Committee (DNC) plans to file a fundraising complaint Monday alleging that John McCain's campaign accepted contributions that exceeded the federal limits and took donations from anonymous backers. Democrats say in the complaint to the Federal Election Commission (FEC) that Sen. McCain's (R-Ariz.) presidential campaign received 6,653 donations that each were at least $1,000 greater than the $2,300 donation limit. McCain also took 23 anonymous contributions that were greater than the $50 limit on donations from unnamed supporters, the complaint says. The complaint is based on records provided by the McCain campaign on its own website. The DNC...

You can buy the presidency. But it’ll cost you. [MSNBC link] OBAMA’S OCT 1-15 SPENDING = $105,599,963.76 That’s more than $293,000 an hour. It’s also 49% of EVERYTHING McCain has spent the entire time he has been running for president ($216,769,840). By contrast, McCain’s Oct. 1-15 spending was $9,246,618.70 (or $26,000/hr). The RNC’s chipped in $45 million but doubtless some of that includes congressional races. To put Obama’s numbers in perspective, to break even at $293K an hour, he needs slightly more than three $25 donations per second.