Free Republic

In an incredible case of mistaking the angel for the devil, the Obama administration’s State Department has quietly placed Israel on a list of countries that “promote, produce, or protect terrorists”. Yet North Korea has been taken off the terrorism list! What's wrong with this picture? Israeli terrorism expert, political analyst, and former Israel Mayor David Rubin, responding from Samaria (in the West Bank), is blasting the Obama administration for “A bizarre manifestation of the psychological defense mechanism of projection in order to hide its failure to call Islamic terrorism by its proper name. From the moment this President entered...

Governor Bill Richardson says it's all a matter of timing -- that if only the feds had wrapped up a corruption investigation into his New Mexico Administration by now, he'd be cleared and would be winging his way to Washington confident of Senate confirmation as the next Commerce Secretary. Instead, he withdrew his nomination earlier this week. And maybe he's right about timing. But we'd dial the clock back not to August, as the national media have in clucking that Barack Obama has a sloppy vetting process. Rather, go back to December 7, 2006. That's the day the Bush Justice...

“Pay to Play” keeps getting better everyday: President-elect Barack Obama took big money from a man at the center of a federal probe that has forced one of Obama’s top Cabinet picks to withdraw. Financial records show the Obama campaign got more than $30,000 from California financier David Rubin, the target of an investigation into donations and possible “pay-to-play” deals involving New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, Obama’s pick for commerce secretary. ~~~ In late September, Rubin attended an exclusive Los Angeles fundraiser for Obama, held at the Beverly Hills’ Greystone Mansion.

Putting aside whatever involvement New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson had in an alleged "pay-to-play" scheme in his home state, his future as U.S. commerce secretary is now a casualty of an ongoing federal investigation into a company that has funded the former presidential candidate's state-level political committees. While no other incoming federal lawmaker or Cabinet member is said to be under investigation, others have certainly seen their campaign efforts propped up by the embattled company. Since 1991, California-based CDR Financial Products and its president, David Rubin, have given $279,100 in campaign contributions at the federal level alone, 95 percent to...

A businessman who is entangled in the grand jury inquiry into possible "pay-to-play" schemes in the New Mexico government has also contributed heavily to Democrats, including Barack Obama. Rubin and his company donated $100,000 in 2003-2004 to the political committees of Richardson. The contributions came both before and after Rubin's company won a state contract in New Mexico to help finance $1.4 billion for highway and transportation projects, a contract that brought $1.5 million in business for the company, CDR Financial Products.