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U.S. wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya may weigh on the minds of voters next year, but during the early months of the 2012 election cycle, members of the U.S. Armed Forces who are active political donors are mainly rallying around two candidates, according to a new analysis by the Center for Responsive Politics. Those candidates are President Barack Obama and libertarian-leaning Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas). Overall, individuals who listed their occupation as one of the branches of the military or the U.S. Department of Defense have donated about $78,000 to presidential candidates, according to the Center's analysis of donors...

Madison - A quirk in state law will allow Gov. Scott Walker and state senators to fight looming recalls by raising unlimited campaign contributions of the kind never before seen in Wisconsin. That ability to collect donations many times larger than the regular limits could prove a significant advantage to the Republican governor and incumbent senators from either party if they face recalls. That also could push spending in the latest possible round of recalls even higher than the record $44 million in estimated spending in the round of Senate recall elections held this summer. In that previous round of recalls,...

Links to some of the stories I've read/browsed through (in no certain order)... Google Google Google Google For more, follow this search link on Google: Google

In a shameless attempt to guilt Texas resident’s into donating to President Obama’s campaign sent out the email below. Friend – Here’s something you don’t have in common with 45,829 other supporters of this movement who tell us they live in Texas. That many of your neighbors have decided to own a piece of this campaign by making a donation of whatever they could afford. For some, that meant just $5. For others, it meant $100 or more. But each had their own personal reason for giving. Our records show that you aren’t one of the 45,829 people in your...

Full title: Panic In DC As Starbucks' Schultz Calls For CEO Boycott Of Campaign Donations, Urges Americans To Go On Strike Against Their Politicians In today's most underreported news of the day, which could potentially have the biggest impact on the future of America, none other than America's CEOs, or at least one of them: Starbucks' Howard Schultz, has mass blasted an email to fellow CEOs asking for a consensual boycott on donating to political campaigns in order to encourage the nation's muppets, elsewhere idiotically called "leaders", to solve America's budget and debt impasse. Bloomberg quotes from the CEO's e-mail...

The Rise of the Democratic Super-Secret PACs. Posted by Moe Lane Friday, June 17th at 7:00PM EDT Super PACs are, of course, the political groups that were set up after the Supreme Court’s landmark free speech decision in Citizens United: they are able to raise and spend unlimited amounts of money advocating both for and against political candidates, but may not donate to those candidates directly. The Left ostensibly hates them, which did not stop them from using them to raise over 28 million dollars in the 2010 election cycle (44% of total Super PAC fundraising) to the Right’s over...

WASHINGTON, June 14 (Reuters) - The White House is under pressure from consumer activists to follow through with its plan to force government contractors to disclose their political contributions, a rule that companies say will politicize awards of government business. Consumer group Public Citizen said on Tuesday it is among those worried that the White House attempt to throw more light on campaign spending will be put on the shelf after harsh criticism from the business community. President Barack Obama is working on an order to compel bidders for federal contracts to disclose two years worth of political contributions. ......

Among those unlikely to be persuaded are the longtime Democrat fundraising powerhouse husband and wife team of Steven L. Rattner and Maureen White. Rattner is a founder of the Quadrangle Group and served as Obama’s Counselor to the Secretary of the Treasury and White is the former finance chair for the Democratic National Committee. One former Democratic donor, who spoke to the New York Times under terms of anonymity, “said it was ironic that the same president who once criticized bankers as ‘fat cats’ would now invite them to dine at Daniel, where the six-course tasting menu runs to $195...

The reach of Citizens United v FEC just got longer, if only temporarily. Relying on the controversial ruling, a federal judge in Virginia threw out part of an indictment against two men accused of secretly reimbursing donors to Hillary Clinton with corporate cash. Judge James Cacheris ruled that Citizens United established that corporations have a right to donate to political campaigns, as well as to spend their own money: A judge has ruled that the campaign finance law banning corporations from making contributions to federal candidates is unconstitutional. …Cacheris says that under last year’s Citizens United Supreme Court case, corporations...

America’s got a fee-vah and the only prescription is … Mitt Romney? The all-but-declared Republican presidential contender, who has kept his head low for much of the year as he collected cash, raised $10.25 million in a single day Monday after bringing together his network of wealthy donors to dial for dollars in a city with no shortage of them. It’s a hefty one-day total that Romney’s team hopes will show his strength in the emerging GOP field…During his 2008 run for the GOP nomination, Romney used more than $40 million of his own money to pay for campaigns in...

Government: Under the guise of rooting out Chicago-style political corruption from government contracting, President Obama seems intent on signing an executive order that would enshrine it. Last month, the White House drafted an order that would require any company bidding on a federal contract to disclose not only its company donations to federal candidates going back two years, but those of its directors and officers as well. It would also force these firms to disclose contributions to independent groups that might spend some of the money on campaign ads. And it would warehouse all this data in a searchable government...

Ex. Pro WWE Wrestler Rocky Jones with be doing a one man fitness challenge of 1,000 free hand squats to raise money and awareness to out Fallen Heroes. On Memorial Day in Times Square, Military Island @ 9am Rocky will attempt to do this challenge. "We ask that everyone pleae support our heroes" 100% of the proceeds goes right to the fund. Every dollar counts!!

Arizona lawmakers want to erect a fence along the border with Mexico - whether the federal government thinks it's necessary or not. They've got a plan that could get a project started using online donations and prison labour. If they get enough money, all they would have to do is get cooperation from landowners and construction could begin as soon as this year. Governor Jan Brewer recently signed a bill that sets the state on a course to building a permanent barrier along its borders, and a website is being launched to raise money for the work.

To Japanese and Japan-based Freepers: What's the best, quickest way of getting aid to people on the ground directly -- via local groups, religious instutitons, etc. I'd rather not give it to an international bureaucracy like the Red Cross (Japanese website was confusing), other NGO's or government. This is being posted Front/Breaking because I imagine a lot of other Freepers want this info and, let's face it, it's an emergency over there and these people need quick, effective help as soon as they can get it. I've seen too many stories of waste, corruption and abuse (Haiti, Katrina, etc.) and...

Bishops advise against charitable gifts to groups they say support abortion, stem cell research or contraception The two Roman Catholic bishops in North Dakota issued guidelines last week naming several well-known, and in some cases, church-related, organizations they say Catholics should not support, with money or volunteer workThe two Roman Catholic bishops in North Dakota issued guidelines last week naming several well-known, and in some cases, church-related, organizations they say Catholics should not support, with money or volunteer work. Bishop Samuel Aquila of the Fargo Diocese and Bishop Paul Zipfel of the Bismarck Diocese released a joint document “Guidelines on...

In conservative James O’Keefe’s Project Veritas’s third major National Public Radio (NPR) sting tape release, Betsy Liley, the taxpayer-funded radio network’s director of institutional giving is heard saying controversial left-wing billionaire George Soros has donated to the organization before last October’s $1.8 million gift. Liley is currently on administrative leave, but her bosses, Ron Schiller, the president of NPR’s nonprofit foundation, and NPR CEO Vivian Schiller (no relation) were both fired. Liley brought up Soros and his nonprofit organization, the Open Society Institute, while discussing what kind of on-air publicity the Muslim Education Action Center (MEAC) Trust would want in...

From the website of the Embassy of Japan, a list of venues for donations and/or offers of assistance.

Lenin was reported to have said that "Capitalists will sell us the rope with which we will hang them." I got that feeling reading this story in the Daily Caller about another NPR executive saying something outrageous. This time, Betsy Liley, a senior vice president for Institutional Giving promised a fictitious front group for the Muslim Brotherhood that NPR could shield their $5 million donation from a government audit, thus making the donation invisible: When a man posing as Ibrahim Kasaam asked, "It sounded like you were saying NPR would be able to shield us from a government audit, is...

Folks, I have been in lurk-mode for about a year. However, the awful events in Christchurch NZ have prompted me to post this general update, for anyone in FReeperland who may be interested. By now, you will have heard the bare facts concerning the Christchurch earthquake, so I won't reiterate them here. The official death toll currently sits at just under 100, with expectations it may well rise to 300+. It is a terrible situation, one that New Zealand was never expecting. My beloved Guardian Angels NZ organization has 3 Lads in Christchurch. They are all OK, as are their...

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.