Free Republic

Scandal: The endless stream of IRS visitors to the White House and the involvement of campaign donors in the Tea Party-targeting scandal belie the claim by the head of the agency that there is no White House involvement. The first thing investigators often ask in pursuit of criminal activity is who would benefit. That the Obama administration, burned in 2010 by the rise of the Tea Party and by the Citizens United decision, would benefit from the IRS' targeting and harassment of Tea Party groups spawned by grass-roots opposition to big government in general and ObamaCare in particular is beyond...

Blackstone Group $65,500 Scoggin Capital Management $40,400 Goldman Sachs $26,600 Altria Group $25,600 Charmer Sunbelt Group $25,000 Oracle Corp $25,000 White & Case $25,000 Verizon Communications $24,600 NorPAC $24,560 (SNIP) BRAT:Baugh Auto Body $5,400 Emory University Hospital $2,600 Magenta Consulting $2,600 McGuire Woods $2,600 Power Monitors $2,600 Covered Cleaning Concepts $2,500 G3 Systems Inc $2,500 HydroTec Inc $2,500 Walker Fitness $2,50

Following Eric Cantor's historic primary loss from a tea party challenger nobody expected to win, the real biggest losers are listed below.Courtesy of OpenSecrets, here are the Top 20 2014 Donors by company: And for Cantor's entire career, here are the biggest industry donors: It would appear the biggest loser tonight is Wall Street and the NAR, especially if the latter was to be compensated by Blackstone for becoming America's biggest landlord.

Medea Benjamin, left sans vagina costume, leads group meeting Homeland Security Sec. Jeh Johnson, photo by Code Pink.It’s an Obama world. As the United States faces a Cold War showdown over Russia annexing Crimea and an international passenger jet having seemingly disappeared, Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson met with leaders of the terrorist support group Code Pink at Homeland Security headquarters in Washington, D.C. on Monday. Medea Benjamin wipes her feet on ‘Homeland Security’, photo by Code Pink.It is another feather in the cap of a group that has a history of working with terrorists and state sponsors...

MINNEAPOLIS -- Minnesota says it has 10,000 lakes. The state also has, according to Anthony Sanders, "10,000 campaign finance laws." He exaggerates, but understandably. As an attorney for Minnesota's chapter of the Institute for Justice, a libertarian public-interest law firm, Sanders represents several Minnesotans whose First Amendment rights of free speech and association are burdened by an obviously arbitrary, notably complex and certainly unconstitutional restriction. Linda Runbeck is a Republican state legislator who is allowed to spend in her campaign -- most spending finances dissemination of speech -- only $62,600. She is not challenging this speech limit, although it is...

A federal judge on Monday blocked Minnesota officials from enforcing a state campaign finance law on donations. The Minnesota law's days were numbered, observers say, after a U.S. Supreme Court decision in a separate case last month. That ruling, in McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission, struck down aggregate contribution limits in federal campaigns. About a week after it was announced, a group of Minnesota candidates and donors filed a First Amendment challenge to the state's "special sources" limit, which says no more than 20 percent of the total raised by a candidate can come from political action committees, lobbyists and...

The most Republican-leaning company in the country, based on political donations, isn’t Koch Industries. It’s the company that makes Wonder Bread. The political action committee of Flowers Foods, a Georgia company that produces the pillowy sandwich bread, Tastykakes and Nature’s Own baked goods, has given more than 99 percent of its political contributions since 1979 to Republicans. Only three Democratic congressional candidates have gotten money from its PAC since 1984, and not one in the past 20 years.

by Nick Sorrentino"Much has been made recently of the rich gaming the system for their own benefit. Of a new “guilded age.” Socialist economist Thomas Piketty’s new book has been getting rave reviews from all over the establishment because it makes the case that very powerful people with nearly bottomless bank accounts have gamed the system and that government induced redistribution is in order. And indeed the rich have gamed the system for their benefit, but as Matthew Continetti points out, the game the super rich want to play for the most part is not one of free markets and...

EDITED Boeing's CEO faced pointed questions about its charitable donation to the Clinton Foundation in the same year that then-Secy of State Hillary Clinton advocated on its behalf on an official tax-financed trip to Russia. David Almasi, shareholder and representative of the National Center for Public Policy Research think tank, asked the question, and gave an indication of the kinds of challenges that companies could face as Hillary weighs a run for president. Dozens of major corporations have made charitable donations to the Clinton Foundation in recent years. Almasi called the Boeing donation a "clear conflict of interest" that seemed...

Do I have any issues with a Tom Steyer using any of his legitimately earned billions of dollars to donate to political causes, candidates, campaigns, and super PACS in which he believes? Absolutely not. Do I have a problem with Tom Steyer smearing other billionaires for doing so, funding a perniciously targeted misinformation campaign full of flat-out falsehoods against the Keystone XL pipeline, and pretending that he has some sort of imagined moral high ground in this arena? Yes, yes I do. Via Politico: Liberal billionaire Tom Steyer insisted Tuesday that heÂ’s not the leftÂ’s version of the Koch brothers....

If you listen carefully, you can hear the stampede of politicians distancing themselves from their once best-friend - Hotel magnate Sant Singh Chatwal - as AP reports, he plead guilty Thursday to charges he secretly funneled more than $180,000 in illegal campaign contributions to three unnamed candidates and coached someone to lie about it. Without the contributions "nobody will even talk to you," Chatwal said. "That's the only way to buy them, get into the system." Welcome to the ugly truth of American politik.  The FT details that Sant Singh Chatwal, chairman of Hampshire Hotels Management, pleaded guilty on Thursday...

The ranch, which has been in Cliven Bundy’s family for more than a century, is ground zero for a growing showdown between federal authorities and individual rights activists.VideoAs a family in Clark County, Nev. continues to face an onslaught of heavily armed federal agents determined to kick them off of their ranch, reports have surfaced that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid might be behind the entire ordeal. The ranch, which has been in Cliven Bundy’s family for more than a century, is ground zero for a growing showdown between federal authorities and individual rights activists. Despite attempting to silence protesters...

RENO, Nev. — A Nevada powerbroker who headed a billion-dollar real estate company and pulled the strings of state politics as a prominent lobbyist for more than a decade was convicted Wednesday of making illegal campaign contributions to U.S. Sen. Harry Reid. Harvey Whittemore, 59, could face up to 15 years in prison and hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines after a federal jury returned guilty verdicts on three counts tied to nearly $150,000 illegally funneled to Reid's re-election campaign in 2007. Later in the day, U.S. District Judge Larry Hicks declared a mistrial on a count of lying...

A group of top Republican donors have reportedly begun an intense effort to draft former Florida governor Jeb Bush into the race for the GOP presidential nomination in 2016. A Washington Post report quotes one major donor as saying that the "vast majority" of the top 100 givers to 2012 GOP nominee Mitt Romney would back Bush in a nomination fight.  The report also claims that a hard press has begun to get Bush into the race because conservative leaders and longtime Republican operatives are concerned about the electoral viability of New Jersey governor Chris Christie and Kentucky Sen. Rand...

The U.S. branch of World Vision based in Federal Way, Washington has about 1,100 workers with an annual budget of one billion dollars per year. The current president, Richard Stearns, announced this week that same-sex “marriage” was now acceptable but they would still require their employees to confine their sexual activities to be within marriage. Same sex “marriage” may be acceptable to World Vision but not to God. The Bible still teaches that perversion is still an abomination and is not approved or acceptable by Him and all true believers. Maybe part of World Vision’s problem is they have a...

Once carried like a conquering hero, President Obama is now pleading with donors for help to push his agenda, having to convince them that his record is something that should wow them. "Do you still have my back?" Obama asks in a new letter to donors and contributors. "You should be proud of what we have been able to accomplish together," he argues. "Can I count on you?" The president's note is to those who supported him in the past. "I would not be here today without you. You have been an essential partner in everything we have accomplished." The...

A longtime adviser to Hillary Rodham Clinton personally sought and secured the funding for an illegal shadow operation to boost Clinton’s 2008 presidential bid, according to court papers released as part of a wide-reaching campaign finance scandal. Washington businessman Jeffrey Thompson, who pleaded guilty Monday on federal conspiracy charges in a case that has focused largely on District Mayor Vincent Gray’s 2010 election, told federal prosecutors that Clinton aide Minyon Moore asked him to fund pro-Clinton efforts in four states and Puerto Rico totaling $608,750 during the hard-fought 2008 Democratic presidential primary campaign, the documents show.

Despite Hillary Rodham Clinton’s promise that she had scrubbed illegal cash contributions from her 2008 presidential campaign, prosecutors revealed Monday that the mastermind of Mayor Vincent C. Gray’s “shadow campaign” also funneled hundreds of thousands of dollars to aid Mrs. Clinton’s bid for the White House.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid says he knows his recent comments about the Koch brothers -- wealthy Republican donors -- have stirred controversy. "But I will continue to shine a light on their subversion of democracy," Reid promised in another vituperative speech on the Senate floor Tuesday. "This is about two very wealthy individuals who intend to buy their very own Congress -- a Congress beholden to their money and bound to enact their radical philosophy."

DAVID GREENE, HOST: … wealthy donors like Tom Steyer are putting a pistol to someone's head, forcing their pet issues on candidates. Steyer himself sees things very differently. He quit his hedge fund with $1.5 billion and now in his view he's fighting as hard as he can with money and passion to do something very noble - save the planet. .. With plans to pour $100 million into key elections this year, Steyer joins this elite group of wealthy individuals trying to influence politicians and voters. Steyer says he doesn't agree with the growing influence of money in politics...