Free Republic

Billionaire gubernatorial hopeful Meg Whitman gave away just $125,000 of her charitable foundation's $46 million in assets in its first year of operation — and tax records show the bulk of the money went to a surprising place. The Griffith R. Harsh IV and Margaret C. Whitman Charitable Foundation in 2007 contributed $100,000 to the Environmental Defense Fund, which is now at odds with Whitman over water policy. The foundation also invested $3 million in hedge funds based in the Cayman Islands — a Caribbean tax haven that's been the subject of political controversy. ... But it's the $100,000 to...

Gore’s Dual Role in Spotlight: Advocate and Investor JOHN M. BRODER November 2, 2009 WASHINGTON — Former Vice President Al Gore thought he had spotted a winner last year when a small California firm sought financing for an energy-saving technology from the venture capital firm where Mr. Gore is a partner. The company, Silver Spring Networks, produces hardware and software to make the electricity grid more efficient. It came to Mr. Gore’s firm, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, one of Silicon Valley’s top venture capital providers, looking for $75 million to expand its partnerships with utilities seeking to install millions...

Breaking News: Sarah Palin Supports ACORN RefundingDoug Giles Saturday, October 24, 2009 The only way the fringe “news” outlets would ever report on ACORN in an antagonistic manner would be if Sarah Palin somehow supported this creepy cabal. Sarah, if you’re reading this column, maybe you should throw your name behind ACORN for a month or two just to get the White House/ACORN’s lap dogs to finally join with FOX and bark down the despicable ACORN clowns until they’re properly vilified, permanently defunded, and eternally ensconced in American history as nothing more than a bad, bad memory—a veritable proverb...

OCTOBER 17, 2009 Rajaratnam Surfaced in U.S. Terrorism Probe By EVAN PEREZ and MATTHEW ROSENBERG WASHINGTON—The hedge-fund billionaire charged as part of a vast insider-trading case surfaced in an earlier, separate probe into U.S. fundraising by a Sri Lankan terrorist group, people familiar with the probe said. As part of that investigation, federal agents said they uncovered documents showing that Raj Rajaratnam, founder of the Galleon Group, was among several wealthy Sri Lankans in the U.S. whose donations to a Maryland-based charity made their way to the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, according to people familiar with the probe. Raj...

Date of Birth: August 12, 1930 Born: Budapest, Hungary Occupation: Hedge Fund Manager & Currency Trader George Soros, a key funder of the liberal extremist group MoveOn.org, recently told an Australian news organization that the current global economic mess has been “stimulating.” (Daily Mail 3/25/2009). While Americans try to make ends meet and struggle to pick up the pieces after financiers like Soros gamed the system, we thought you should know the truth about George Soros… FACT 1: Billionaire Financier George Soros Gave $2,500,000 To MoveOn.Org Voter Fund.1 FACT 2: Soros Called American Troops In Iraq “Perpetrators” And “Oppressors.”2 FACT...

David Bohnett Los Angeles, Calif., Oct 16, 2009 / 03:55 am (CNA).- Delivering an acceptance speech for a GLSEN award, a wealthy homosexual activist has attacked Catholic leaders, saying they are among his movement’s “greatest adversaries.” He called on his allies to combat “head-on” religious organizations opposed to homosexual causes and to take “active measures” against them. At its Oct. 9 Respect Awards event in Los Angeles, the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN) honored David Bohnett, the cable network HBO and screenwriter Shonda Rhimes with its Lifetime Achievement Award. They were awarded for what GLSEN called “their...

Former Vice President Al Gore will be coming to Virginia on Friday to give a last-minute boost to the Democratic candidate for governor, Creigh Deeds, a party source said. Gore will headline a private fundraiser in McLean at the home of longtime Democratic supporters Al and Claire Dwoskin. The visit will provide positive publicity for Deeds in the days before the Nov. 3 election, when Deeds will face Bob McDonnell, the Republican nominee.

Goldman Sachs is considering donating in excess of $1bn (£627m) to charity in an attempt to quell the growing furore over the likely size of its 2009 bonus pot. The investment bank which is set to report its results for the three months to September on Thursday, is understood to be giving serious thought to some form of large philanthropic donation. The aim of the donation, first disclosed by Henry Blodget's Business Insider blog, would be to deflect the likely row come at the end of the year. By then Goldman's total compensation pot is expected to be a record...

According to OpenSecrets.org, DeMaurice Smith contributed $2,300 to Barack Obama on Election Day, November 4, 2008. Why would someone give money to a candidate on election day? Isn't it a little late to campaign at that point? Curious, indeed.

Obama administration officials said Wednesday there is no chance that ACORN will get a Homeland Security grant it was awarded last month because of a provision in a bill signed into law last week prohibiting any federal funding to the controversial group. Several members of Congress said they were pleased that ACORN will not get the money, which would have come from funding typically earmarked for fire departments across the country, but they questioned why it had been awarded to ACORN in the first place. At least one also still wants official assurance of a permanent withdrawal of the $997,402...

OLYMPIA, Wash. -- Microsoft Corp. has donated $100,000 to the campaign supporting more partnership rights for Washington state gay couples. That's the largest single donation in favor of Referendum 71, which asks voters to approve or reject a new law that expands domestic partnerships for gay and lesbian couples.

Not only did the four doctors who flanked President Obama at his White House press event on Monday recommend his plan; three out of four of them donated to his presidential campaign. It could be an ad slogan to put the toothpaste marketers who like to brag that nine out of ten doctors recommend their brand to shame. The four doctors who stood and clapped along with Mr. Obama’s plans were Dr. Mona Mangat of St. Petersburg, Florida, Dr. Hershey Garner of Fayetteville, Arkansas, Dr. Richard A. Evans of Dover-Foxcroft, Maine, and Dr. Amanda McKinney of Beatrice, Nebraska. Campaign finance...

President Obama announced he plans to nominate Patrick Corvington to be chief executive of the Corporation for National and Community Service, which oversees Senior Corps, AmeriCorps, and Learn and Serve America. Big Government readers will remember that “the Corporation” assumed a prominent role on the infamous NEA Conference call, where ”the Corporation’s” Nell Abernathy joined White House and NEA officials to nudge artists to produce works supporting the Obama Administration’s legislative priorities. cncs-logo_1 Although the charity Corvington works for, Annie E. Casey Foundation of Baltimore, Maryland, has granted funding to ACORN during his tenure, it is unclear if Corvington has...

The Democratic National Committee is sending an additional $1 million to aid Virginia Democratic gubernatorial candidate Creigh Deeds’ campaign, POLITICO has learned. The money comes in addition to the $5 million the party committee has already committed to the Virginia race, one of two governors races in the country this fall. “We’re thrilled with the additional commitment from Governor Kaine and the DNC,” said Deeds senior adviser Mo Elleithee. “The fact that they are digging so deep shows that they’re fully committed to Creigh and to this race, and we’re appreciative of their continued support.” In addition to the cash,...

The liberal political organizing group ACORN, battered by the release of embarrassing videos and allegations of financial mismanagement and fraud, has also been losing support from several major foundations. The Ford Foundation, the Annie E. Casey Foundation, the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation, the Marguerite Casey Foundation and Bank of America have stopped funding the group and its affiliates over the past year and a half. The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, a network that helps low-income families with housing, voter registration and other issues, receives about 10 percent of its $25 million annual budget from federal grants, according...

Two Iowa lesbian activists who donated approximately $150,000 in the 2006 and 2008 federal election cycles, all (but one) to Democratic candidates, are caught up in a reported $5.9 million embezzlement scheme.Phyllis Stevens was arrested in Las Vegas last Friday on charges of money laundering and wire fraud after the exposure of the scheme by her employer, insurance giant Aviva USA .Her partner, Marla Stevens, has been sued by Aviva for benefiting from the embezzlement because the money was alledgedly deposited in an account shared by both women. Marla Stevens has not been criminally charged, however. According to CampaignMoney.com, Phyllis...

Democrats should be bitter that President Obama failed to secure the Olympic Games for the City of Chicago as major donors in the Unions and ACORN will be lacking the millions of dollars in donations that would come from the Olympic Projects. If Obama along with Mayor Daley had in fact secured the games, the deconstruction and construction of the Waterfront and Olympic Village would have put millions if not billions of dollars in the back pocket of Union Only Labor, who would ensured the projects would be riddled with cost overruns(remember Boston's Big Dig Project) Social Groups like ACORN...

This week’s Washington Times column: A telling event occurred on Sept. 15, Day 6 of the drip, drip, drip ACORN video rollout. President Obama met for lunch with former President Bill Clinton at trendy Il Mulino in New York City. For the second consecutive day, the New York Post featured the ACORN scandal on its cover – complete with James O’Keefe and Hannah Giles in their outrageous “pimp and ho” costumes. Does anyone think the president and the former president were unaware that the city in which they were dining was mesmerized by the ACORN scandal – especially since ACORN...

Obama made a big deal during the election that he didn't accept money from federal political action committees or lobbyists. But laws require individuals to disclose their occupation and their employer when they donate to federal political candidates. We checked with the Center for Responsive Politics, a well-respected nonpartisan group that specializes in analyzing campaign data. Their numbers include contributions from employees and their immediate families. Their analysis of the 2008 presidential campaign found that University of California employees were Obama's top donor, giving a collective $1.6 million. That system is run by the state of California, and hence is...

TIDE FOUNDATION: Overview Tides Foundation & Tides Center When is a foundation not a foundation? When it gives away other foundations’ money. Most of America’s big-money philanthropies trace their largesse back to one or two wealthy contributors. The Pew Charitable Trusts was funded by Joseph Pew’s Sun Oil Company earnings, the David & Lucille Packard Foundation got its endowment from the Hewlett-Packard fortune, the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation grew out of General Motors profits, and so on. In most cases, the donors’ descendants manage and invest these huge piles of money, distributing a portion each year to nonprofit groups of...

WASHINGTON - U.S. Rep. Mark Kirk (R-Ill.) today urged President Obama to withdraw his Administration's request to provide $400,000 to Libya's Qaddafi Foundation, just weeks after they celebrated the release of a terrorist responsible for the murders of 189 Americans. Last month, when Scotland freed Abel Baset Megrahi, the only man convicted in the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103, Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi greeted him with a hero's welcome. Qaddafi's son, Saif, was involved in the negotiation for Megrahi's release and accompanied the terrorist back to Libya. Despite the U.S. Administration's strong condemnation of Megrahi's release, the State Department...

According to the Grassley report, charities "are being used to raise monies which are then funneled to other charities or to other organizations for purposes other than what the donor may have intended. . . . Dollars raised for charitable [purposes] appear to be used for impermissible lobbing and political activity."

George Soros is one of the big sugar daddies of the Democratic Party. He also is the ruler of an archipelago of so-called 527 groups that pose as non-partisan activists groups, but in fact are often hyper-partisan (such as MoveOn.Org), and are often employed by Democrats to influence elections. Soros, for years, has been the top funder of such groups. His influence among Democrats is widespread and enduring (and was well-documented by David Horowitz and Richard Poe in their book, The Shadow Party: How George Soros, Hillary Clinton and Sixties Radicals Seized Control of the Democratic Party). His pet think-tank,...

When the list of donors to the Van Jones “Green for All” organization is examined, one name stands out — the Open Society Institute of billionaire George Soros. The Green for All 2008 annual report is also notable for the pictures of the powerful people who associated with Jones, a known communist. They include House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and former Vice President Al Gore. While the Open Society Institute was supporting Green for All in 2008, when Jones was running it, the Soros-funded organization was also financially underwriting the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights when Jones was in charge...

As an update to yesterday’s post, here is the link to the Big Hollywood expose by Patrick Courrielche on the National Endowment for the Arts using federal funds to promote Obama administration policies and projects. Is this a blockbuster? You make the call… From BigHollywood.com…

Obama yesterday expressed concern at the sorry state of the news industry and said that he will look at a news paper bailout, because otherwise, blogs will take over the world, and that would be a threat to democracy, The Hill reports. "I am concerned that if the direction of the news is all blogosphere, all opinions, with no serious fact-checking, no serious attempts to put stories in context, that what you will end up getting is people shouting at each other across the void but not a lot of mutual understanding," he said.

It was one of the most popular topics among the questions you submitted to me for my interview with President Obama – the controversy involving ACORN. While the President said that ACORN "deserves to be investigated" in light of the "inappropriate" video that's gone viral, he did not endorse recent votes in Congress to cut off federal funding for the community group. Here’s our FULL exchange: STEPHANOPOULOS: How about the funding for ACORN? OBAMA: You know, if -- frankly, it's not really something I've followed closely. I didn't even know that ACORN was getting a whole lot of federal money....

A woman carrying a clipboard knocks on a door in Park Heights. Her pitch is direct: "I'm Michelle from ACORN. We're fighting for change in the neighborhood. I wanted to know what you want to see changed." The owner, who has lived in this well-worn rowhouse on Shirley Avenue for 50 years, lets her inside. Soon, Michelle Moore is talking rapid-fire about trash piles and abandoned properties and how elected officials would never allow this sort of thing to happen in stately Roland Park. SNIP Katzenberg and state officials say Maryland ACORN has never received state funding. The bulk of...

U.S. Rep. John Boehner of Ohio, the top Republican in the U.S. House of Representatives, is demanding a straight up-or-down vote on a bill dedicated to removing ACORN from the list of recipients of federal largesse, or says he'll force the issue. And a key conservative vote, U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., says unless there is such an action, it will mean the recent votes on that very issue were nothing but "cover." ... The result has been that the U.S. Census Bureau has cut ties to Acorn and both houses of Congress have taken votes to halt funding to...

Seizing on an issue that has been trumpeted by conservative media, Republican congressional leaders have launched an all-out campaign to choke off any federal dollars from going to ACORN, the scandal-plagued anti-poverty group. After the Senate voted on Monday to bar any new federal money for ACORN — the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now — from the Departments of Transportation and Housing and Urban Development, House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) and other top Republicans began pressing President Barack Obama to use his executive authority to extend the ban to all federal agencies. "It is evident that ACORN...

The ACORN vote in the House is stunning news. Just 48 hours after Republican Leader John Boehner introduced the "Defund ACORN Act," the bill -- which most Republicans thought Democrats would do anything to block -- passed by a resounding 345-75 vote. It would never have made it to a vote had not the Democratic leadership decided to allow it, and the winning total included 172 Democrats. Yes, 172 House Democrats voted to totally cut off funding for an organization that has worked for years on behalf of Democrats nationwide. Couple that with the 83-7 Senate vote to cut off...

The House yesterday by a vote of 345-75 denied all federal funding for ACORN, the beleaguered community organizing group at the center of yet another series of scandals.  All 75 votes against stripping ACORN funding were from Democrats, with two Democrats voting “present.�  The full vote breakdown is at the link. House Republican leader John Boehner of Ohio offered the Motion to Recommit on an unrelated bill yesterday that stripped the funding.  The shocker was how quickly the House Democrat majority leadership threw ACORN under the bus. “There were points of order that lie against [the motion], but I think...

The House voted Thursday to deny federal money to the community-organizing group Acorn after a video emerged in which employees of the group gave advice to two conservative activists posing as a prostitute and a pimp who said they wanted buy a house in Baltimore and start a brothel. Republicans added the prohibition to a Democratic bill on college lending by a bipartisan vote of 345-75, showing that Acorn, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, was increasingly seen by Democrats as a political liability. “Acorn has violated serious federal laws, and today the House voted to ensure that...

After five undercover videos highlighting scathingly illegal activities from community organizer, ACORN, the House of Representatives voted yesterday to de-fund ACORN, 345-75. Amazingly, considering the seriousness of the corruption that was uncovered by the BIGGOVERNMENT.COM videos, there are still 75 representatives in the House that voted to continue funding ACORN with taxpayer dollars.

BATON ROUGE - Governor Bobby Jindal has issued an executive order cutting off current and future state funding to ACORN following a series of incidents captured on videotape and the subpoena of documents from the group’s national headquarters in New Orleans by the state attorney general's office. The executive order states that, “ACORN’s actions make clear that financial involvement with ACORN is contrary to the public policy of the State of Louisiana and the best interests of its citizens.” The order prohibits all state agencies from entering into future contracts with ACORN or its subsidiaries and directs the agencies to...

Election '08: Barack Obama lies about his ACORN past while agreeing to let the group shape the policies of his administration. He hopes his community organizer pals will help him make America "less mean-spirited.As far back as Harvard Law School, Obama dreamed of transforming America in the image of community organizations such as ACORN with whom and for whom he trained. In the May 3, 1990, edition of Chicago's Daily Herald newspaper, there's an article in which Obama, while attending Harvard Law School, gives his skewed view of American society and his plans for it. "I'm interested in organizations, not...

Oversight: As the Senate votes to de-fund Acorn, add pimping, tax evasion and human trafficking to voter fraud paid for with taxpayer dollars and you have an organized criminal enterprise. It's time to investigate.After Acorn workers were caught on tape in three cities allegedly abetting what they believed was a fraudulent-mortgage and sex-trafficking scheme, the Senate has voted overwhelmingly to strip the group of funding in the Transportation/Housing and Urban Development appropriations bill. The amendment, offered by Nebraska Republican Sen. Mike Johanns, passed by an 83-to-7 margin and marked the third time this year that Republicans have tried to block...

An ACORN affiliate has just submitted applications for over $6 million in government funding, despite the controversial videos of the organization’s workers aiding a child prostitution “promoter.” Employees with the Association of Community Organizers for Reform Now (ACORN) in Washington D.C., Baltimore and Brooklyn told uncover investigators posing as a pimp and a prostitute how they could circumvent the law. ACORN has already fired four of the workers. But it claims the tapes have been “doctored” and “edited.” A third video implicating the ACORN workers was released today. Meanwhile, the ACORN Institute, one of many ACORN affiliates, has applied for...

That headline needed to be written. Somewhere, anywhere. And it needs to stand because it's true. Glenn Beck has been without a doubt the tip on the spear here. Sure, all of us helped. From further getting the word out to digging up small tidbits. Breitbart played a major part. But it was GB with his radio show and his TV show and the never ending drum beat who made all of this happen. Thank you Glenn. May your family be safe. You are such a huge target now that we all fear for yours and your family's lives.

WASHINGTON (AP) – The Senate voted Monday to block the Housing and Urban Development Department from giving grants to ACORN, a community organization under fire in several voter-registration fraud cases.The 83-7 vote would deny housing and community grant funding to ACORN, which stands for the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now. The action came as the group is suffering from bad publicity after a duo of conservative activists posing as a prostitute and her pimp released hidden-camera videos in which ACORN employees in Baltimore gave advice on house-buying and how to account on tax forms for the woman’s income....

Senator Mike Johanns (R-NE) introduced an amendment to the HUD and Transportation appropriation bill to strip ACORN of all federal funding. A week ago, Johanns wouldn’t have gotten the amendment to the floor. Today, however, after three straight days of BigGovernment.com’s video exposés of ACORN offices in Washington DC, New York City, and Baltimore offering assistance to pimping, tax evasion, and trafficking in underage Salvadorean girls, Johanns not only got his vote — but he got an impressive bipartisan showing. The Senate passed the Johanns amendment 83-7. At the beginning of the vote, it appeared that Democrats might resist. Initially,...

Drudge Siren only.

From Michelle Malkin: "The Johanns Amendment is #2355 to H.R. 3288. Johanns cited the BigGovernment.com sting videos as evidence that ACORN cannot be trusted with government money: “Until a full investigation is launched into ACORN, no taxpayer money should be used to fund its activities. A vote in favor of my amendment is a vote in favor of the taxpayer and a vote against the status quo.”" "Several Democrats have voted AYE, including Cardin, Carper, Inouye, Johnson (SD), Murray, Tester, Warner, Bingaman, Begich, Nelson (NE), Webb, Landrieu, Bayh, Conrad, Rockefeller, Dodd, Pryor, Hagan, Kohl, Feingold, Boxer, Nelson (FL), Brown, Harkin,...

ACORN came to public prominence during the 2008 election when the group ran what is arguably the largest voter fraud in American History, they were convicted of, or being investigated for voter fraud in 14 states. Back in March the Democrat's favorite voter fraud group, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) got a new opportunity to destroy the constitutional right of "one man-one vote." They were contracted by the Census department to hire local census workers. That's right, the same group that registered Mickey Mouse to vote in Florida, was hired to to count him in the...

As we all know, Joe Wilson spoke FOR US last night.... And that can just not be allowed, he must be DESTROYED. 9,000 Individual Contributors have sent money to his opponent, Rob Miller, in the last 15 hours, via just ONE website, ActBlue. 3,846 KOS KLOWNS have donated over $135,000 ALONE. Could Freepers donate that kind of money to a single candidate in the same amount of time?? We have NOTHING that even comes close to competing with this, and this should serve as a MASSIVE wakeup call for us, to get it together, FAST... ActBlue cleared FIFTY MILLION DOLLARS...

On August 12, a group of 21 arts organizations endorsed President Barack Obama's health reform plan only 48 hours after a conference call in which a top National Endowment for the Arts official asked arts groups for help in advancing the administration's policy agenda, including health care. ne reason the arts organizations may have been so swift to follow the administration's suggestion is that 16 of the groups and affiliated organizations received nearly $2 million in grants from the National Endowment for the Arts in the 150 days before the conference call.

Sen. Edward Kennedy's family fortune not only fueled his brothers' presidential campaigns and his eight terms in the U.S. Senate, it also helped drive the family's liberal legacy and forge Kennedy's lifelong crusade for universal health care. Just how wealthy was Kennedy when he died Tuesday at the age of 77 after a yearlong battle with brain cancer? Untangling a family fortune that reaches back to the early days of the past century is murky business, but the annual federal financial disclosure reports Kennedy was required to file provide at least a' partial glimpse into his personal capital. As a...

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. The Strategic Principles of the Tides Foundation Over the course of its 33 year history, the Tides network has given hundreds of millions of dollars to anti-free enterprise groups,...

Millions of stimulous dollars spent on sex studies, including effect of meth on rats having sex

With the battle over ObamaCare heating up to white-hot temperatures -- which promise to become even hotter in the fall -- I became a little curious today to see who the heavy hitters are, donations-wise, to Democrats in their fight to keep all those un-American, well-dressed mobs currently invading August town halls across the country from seizing the reins of power in a coup d’état of astounding proportions. … Naturally, the top spot's occupied by our favorite group of folks; the lawyers. For 2008, they somehow managed to rub two nickels together -- to the tune of 126.8 million dollars...