Free Republic

The casino magnate and big Gingrich booster in 2012 may have his eyes on a new candidate in 2016. Billionaire casino magnate Sheldon Adelson and his wife Miriam spent an astonishing $98 million trying to elect conservative candidates during the 2012 election cycle. The Adelsons threw more than a fifth of that total at Winning our Future, a super PAC supporting GOP presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich. We all know how Gingrich’s primary campaign against Mitt Romney turned out, but the Adelsons’ contributions kept Gingrich’s campaign afloat far longer than the former House Speaker would otherwise have survived. With potential candidates...

Tom Steyer: The Green Billionaire Pouring Millions Into The Midterms Former hedge fund executive has given nearly $56m and taken a stand against the Koch brothers by boosting liberal candidates in close races Suzanne Goldenberg 26 October 2014 10.02 EDT Tom Steyer has spent nearly $56m in competitive Senate and gubernatorial races. The green billionaire Tom Steyer this week solidified his status as the leading patron of environmental causes in American politics, with the announcement that he had given nearly $56m to make climate change a top-tier issue in the midterm elections. With just days to go until the elections,...

Hillary Clinton tonight told a room full of Hollywood heavyweights that the midterm elections are very important to make sure the Democrats retain the Senate so they can move forward on “important issues like immigration reform.” What she also told the 60 or so guests in attendance is, to use some of the introductory remarks by co-chair Jeffrey Katzenberg, is “the amazing drawing power” of the former Secretary of State. A fact not lost on anyone as tonight’s event raised $2.1 million for Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, a fundraising record. SNIP...The DreamWorks Animation boss and his wife Marilyn were joined...

TOP 10 DONORS TO TOM CORBETT 1. Republican Governors' Association, $5.85 million 2. John M. Templeton Jr., president and CEO, Templeton Foundation, $920,000 3. Republican Party of Pennsylvania, $352,000 4. John S. Middleton, former owner, John Middleton Inc., $300,000 5. Pennsylvania Future Fund political action committee, $276,500 6. H.F. "Gerry" Lenfest, owner, Interstate General Media (parent company of The Philadelphia Inquirer and Daily News), $252,000 7. Terrence M. Pegula, president and CEO, East Resources, $250,000 8. Albert Boscov, chairman and CEO, Boscov's Department Store LLC, $150,000 9. Lance Shaner, CEO, Shaner Enterprises, $150,000 10. A. Ross Myers, CEO, American Infrastructure,...

You may be wondering why Barack Obama, with his propensity to name “czars” for every problem that ails us, has not named an Ebola Czar. The reason is because he has, in fact, named an Ebola Czar. So why are we constantly seeing Dr. Tom Frieden of the CDC embarrass himself in press conferences instead of our Ebola Czar? It turns out Dr. Nicole Lurie, the czar in charge of potential infectious disease catastrophes, has made the most of her time by funneling federal dollars to Democratic donors. That would be the federal dollars the left says we need more...

As the 2014 midterm elections approached, the media were quick to criticize conservative donors like the Koch brothers for backing issues important to them. But journalists largely ignored the incredible financial power being used to promote the liberal agenda. Five top donors – Michael Bloomberg, Warren Buffett, Pierre Omidyar, Tom Steyer and George Soros’s own son, Jonathan – are major funders of the left. Together, they have contributed at least $2.7 billion since 2000 to groups pushing abortion, gun control, climate change alarmism and liberal candidates. That’s not how major media depicted them. Broadcast networks applauded when billionaire hedge fund...

Left-wing financier George Soros has spent more than $100 million funding groups that in some way support "immigrant rights" since 1997, with many advocating for comprehensive immigration reform legislation. He has donated over $3 million to the National Immigration Forum, which has fiercely advocated for comprehensive immigration reform legislation and legalization of the nation's illegal immigrants.

President Obama makes a rush hour foray into Seattle and the Eastside on Tuesday, once more holding no public events and raising money from donors who will pay up to $25,000 to see the 44th president and ask Obama a question. The President’s political ATM machine will operate at two destinations, the Madrona home of Bruce and Anne Blume alongside Lake Washington and the Medina mansion of Costco co-founder Jim Sinegal. One event is for the Democratic National Committee, the other will benefit the Senate Majority PAC. Air Force One is due to land at Boeing Field around 3 p.m.,...

A major Democratic donor who is funding some of the left’s most politically active electioneering groups was subject to bipartisan condemnation this week in the midst of a federal investigation into his hedge fund’s tax avoidance schemes. Senators from both parties blasted efforts by Renaissance Technologies, a hedge fund owned by Democratic mega-donor Jim Simons, to shield itself from federal income taxes during a Tuesday hearing. “Two banks and a handful of hedge funds developed a complex financial structure to engage in highly profitable trades while claiming an unjustified lower tax rate and avoiding limits on trading with borrowed money,”...

WASHINGTON (AP) — Amid a swirl of foreign and border challenges, President Barack Obama is embarking on the one mission that has regularly proved a winner for him — raising money for his fellow Democrats. Obama on Tuesday was starting a three-day West Coast trip, scheduled to attend at least five fundraising events in Seattle, San Francisco and Los Angeles less than four months ahead of midterm elections that could change Washington's balance of power. The trip comes as Obama is dealing with a series of high-profile tests of his presidency, from Eastern Europe to the Middle East to the...

Partisan gridlock blocking President Obama’s nominees for prestigious ambassadorships has created vacancies in a slew of top diplomatic posts at a time of growing international instability. It has also prevented Democrats from rewarding some of their biggest donors and bundlers in the midst of an intense campaign year, when they are eager to raise more money than Republicans. Ambassadorial nominees used to sail through the Senate. But as Obama has tapped an increasing number of them with strong political ties to the Democratic Party, the confirmation process has been bogged down, leaving gaps in important posts around the world. Secretary...

A Chinese businessman paid $500,000 to have dinner with Bill and Hillary Clinton. But when he asked if his kids could join, the former first couple demanded another half-million, the New York Post reports. One witness said Holzman regaled guests with a tale that “lunch for two with Bill and Hillary went for $500,000 to benefit the Clinton Foundation.” And the winning bid came from “a Chinese business mogul who then asked if he could bring his two children along to the meeting.” But, our spy said, the high bidder was then told by the Clinton camp he could only...

Virginia state Republican lawmakers have lost one of their most reliable sources of campaign cash with U.S. House Majority Leader Eric Cantor's defeat in a GOP primary contest last month. Cantor's campaign account and the Cantor-controlled 7th District Republican Committee have given more than $700,000 directly to Republican state candidates since Cantor was first elected to Congress in 2000. That is according to campaign finance reports compiled by the Virginia Public Access Project, a nonprofit that tracks political contributions. Helping Cantor help state politicians were big-name donors from around the country attracted by the majority leader's former star power. They...

Very few Americans realize there exists a large network of far left philanthropists and foundations in America dedicated to destroying the American way of life, our Christian-based culture and our free enterprise system. They seek to remove America from its constitutional foundations and move it toward a European-style socialism. Much of this effort is coordinated by a little known group called the Tides Foundation and its related group, the Tides Center. Over the course of its 33 year history, the Tides network has given hundreds of millions of dollars to anti-free enterprise groups, gun control groups, anti-private property groups, abortion...

Richard Mellon Scaife, the Pittsburgh philanthropist and reclusive heir to the Mellon banking fortune, whose support for right-wing causes laid the foundations for America’s modern conservative movement and fueled the 1998 impeachment of President Bill Clinton, died on Friday. He was 82. Mr. Scaife’s death was reported by the The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, a newspaper he owned. He had announced recently that he had cancer. Decades before David and Charles Koch bankrolled right-wing causes, Mr. Scaife and Joseph Coors, the beer magnate, were the leading financiers of the conservative crusade of the 1970s and ’80s, seeking to reverse the liberal traditions...

Bill and Hillary Clinton raised from $2-3 billion in the two decades they’ve been prominent on the national stage, according to the Wall Street Journal. The Journal tallied the Clintons’ speaking fees, fundraising for their foundation and the sums raised for Bill Clinton’s two presidential campaigns, for the Democratic National Committee while he was in office and for Hillary Clinton’s Senate and presidential campaigns. Between $1.3-2 billion came from U.S. companies and industry sources, making up at least 75 percent of the sum — more than the 60 percent industry sources contributed to the two Bushes’ political operations. The Journal...

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...