Free Republic

First Lady Michelle Obama is telling Democratic donors to pay. "[I]t's simple, you can write a big ol' fat check," the first lady told Democrats at a fundraiser. "That's what we need you to do. Right now, write a big check -- big huge one -- write the biggest check you can possibly write.

Victory has a thousand fathers, as the saying goes, while defeat is always an orphan. New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg is making sure everyone knows he has a claim for paternity when it comes to the narrow victory won by Democrat Terry McAuliffe in Virginia’s gubernatorial race.Bloomberg hit the cable-news airwaves  the day after the Virginia election to argue McAuliffe’s narrow victory was proof the state’s voters were swayed by the $1.2 million he spent on TV advertisements  pushing gun control measures during the last days of the race.There’s just one problem. In the two weeks after Bloomberg got...

Chicago — Observers in this land infamous for political tricks say a popular method of winning elections is to ensure all of your opponents are thrown off the ballot — the tactic the Daley machine used to first elect an unopposed Barack Obama to the Illinois state senate. Another: Throw a ringer into the race to draw votes away from your real opponent. That latter tactic seems to have been employed by Democrats in this week’s close gubernatorial race in Virginia. And it may have made the difference. There were many reasons Republican Ken Cuccinelli lost, ranging from his poor...

Barack Obama, doing what he does best, is back campaigning and fundraising hard for the next five weeks. Obama’s plans include eight fundraisers for Democrats in the House and Senate. The events include: 1. New York: Fundraising for House Democrats and the Democratic National Committee (DNC). 2. Boston: a House Democratic fundraiser on Oct. 30. 3. November 6, Dallas: No: another fundraiser 4. November 8, Miami: an event for Senate Democrats. 5. November 14, Philadelphia: another event for Senate Democrats 6. Seattle: fundraising for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) 7. San Francisco: more fundraising for House Democrats. 8. Los...

Breitbart News has confirmed that much of the credit for Terry McAuliffe’s narrow 47.9 percent to 45.5 percent victory over Republican Ken Cuccinelli in Tuesday’s election is attributable to a $4 million donation the McAuliffe campaign gave to the Democratic Party of Virginia, which used those funds to run a highly effective ground game for the party’s full slate of candidates. Ashley Bauman, press secretary for the Democratic Party of Virginia, told Breitbart News in an exclusive interview on Wednesday that "[w]hile we used that money [the $4 million donated to the Democratic Party of Virginia from the McAuliffe campaign]...

A heated battle is taking place in Arizona between the fledgling solar industry and APS, the state’s largest energy company, which enjoys a state-granted near-monopoly over energy. In sunny Arizona, it is peculiar that solar energy is being portrayed as the bad guy. Since Arizona is a Republican-dominated state, APS is sneakily buying up influential Republicans, both directly and indirectly, to perpetuate its crony capitalism. The Washington Post refers to these Republicans as “some of the best pollsters and consultants money can buy.” The spin goes like this, “stop subsidizing the solar industry.” The word “subsidy” is used to scare...

A tech firm linked to a campaign-donor crony of President Obama not only got the job to help build the federal health-insurance Web site — but also is getting paid to fix it.

"WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Billionaire financier George Soros, a major Democratic donor, is backing an effort to persuade former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to run for president in 2016, a spokesman said on Thursday."

The Super Bowl champion Baltimore Ravens are receiving $130,000 in public funds to promote Obamacare for a year, according to documents obtained by Judicial Watch. In September, officials with Maryland Health Connection — Maryland’s Obamacare exchange — announced that the team had signed on to be a partner in the promotion efforts for President Obama’s signature health-care law. “Research shows that 71 percent of the uninsured population in Maryland have watched, attended or listened to a Ravens game in the past 12 months,” the Connection’s press announcement explained. “The partnership will provide Maryland Health Connection with the opportunity to...

RICHMOND, VA, October 21, 2013 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A political arm of the nation’s biggest abortion provider has spent nearly all of its cash on ads opposing Republican Ken Cuccinelli, the strongly pro-life candidate for Virginia governor. On Friday, Planned Parenthood VOTES, a federal SuperPAC run by the abortion giant, reported it had spent nearly $1.1 million on a new anti-Cuccinelli ad buy, leaving the PAC with only $73,746 to pay its remaining bills, which total $59,919.

“My overall sense, right from day one, was it was created by people who had never created a commercial database application before," said FMS Software developer Luke Chung. Chung looked over the site and was stunned by the code and the cost - by some estimates, perhaps $200 million. Chung continued, “At $200 an hour, that would be a million man hours, 5,000 man years. I don't think they had time to use 5,000 man years. So I don't know where the money went. I don't know what these people were doing. There're not that many web pages. I don't...

The Democratic National Committee has narrowly edged its Republican rival in fundraising for the first time all year. In a Sunday release, the Republican National Committee reported raising $7.1 million in September. Democrats on Friday reported a cash haul of nearly $7.4 million in September, while finishing the month with more than $5 million on hand.

Buried inside the budget deal brokered by Mitch McConnell and Harry Reid: a payout to the millionaire widow of the late Democratic senator Frank Lautenberg. There is appropriated for payment to Bonnie Englebardt Lautenberg, widow of Frank R. Lautenberg, late a Senator from New Jersey, $174,000.” Agreed to by the Republican and Democratic leaders of the Senate. Lautenberg’s networth $56.8 million last year

Fifteen years after tobacco companies agreed to pay billions of dollars in fines in what is still the largest civil litigation settlement in U.S. history, it's unclear how state governments are using much of that money. So far tobacco companies have paid more than $100 billion to state governments as part of the 25-year, $246 billion settlement. Among many state governments receiving money, Orange County, Calif., is an outlier. Voters mandated that 80 percent of money from tobacco companies be spent on smoking-related programs, like a cessation class taught in the basement of Anaheim Regional Medical Center. "So go ahead...

Virginia gubernatorial candidate Terry McAuliffe was one of dozens of investors with a Rhode Island estate planner charged with defrauding insurers by using the stolen identities of terminally ill people, according to court documents filed Wednesday by federal prosecutors in Providence. McAuliffe’s name appeared on a lengthy list of investors with Joseph A. Caramadre, an attorney and accountant who obtained the identities of dying people to set up annuities that ultimately cost insurance companies millions of dollars, the documents say.

McAuliffe to donate funds from convicted Rhode Island businessman to charity Terry McAuliffe's name popped up today on a list of investors who bought annuities from a Rhode Island businessman who pleaded guilty in 2012 to stealing the identities of terminally ill patients. The convicted businessman, Joseph Caramadre, was also a donor to McAuliffe's failed 2009 bid for the Democratic nomination for governor of Virginia. Caramadre donated more than $26 thousand to McAuliffe and hosted a fundraiser for the candidate. Caramadre(Court sketch of Caramadre courtesy of WJAR) According to our NBC affiliate in Providence WJAR, there is no evidence that...

LOS ANGELES – Funding for clinical cancer trials and other life-saving research under the National Institutes of Health was cut off in response to the government slimdown, but it looks like the cookie monster will still be knee-deep in chocolate chips (or is it carrots now?) According to the Daily Treasury Statement and first reported by CNS News, the administration dished out $445 million to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) on the first day of the slimdown, which means funds for the likes of PBS Newshour, NPR and “Sesame Street” are being spent before cancer research.

Well isn’t this special… The ad opens by pointing out the hundreds of decisions that women make each day, from picking groceries to buying homes. “And we make them ourselves,” says the narrator, Cecile Richards, president of Planned Parenthood Votes. “But Ken Cuccinelli is intruding on our most personal decisions.” Richards lists off some of Cuccinelli’s stances, including his call for a ban on all abortions, “even when a woman’s health is in danger.” “Cuccinelli doesn’t trust women,” Richards says at the end of the ad. “So how can we trust him to be governor?” Because going to the abortion...

How did the Republican Party become so splintered and so infused with hard-line conservatives? Don't blame redistricting. Don't chalk it up to anti-Obama fervor.Republicans have become an unruly bunch of scorched-earth conservatives because the Tea Party smashed the business lobby's monopoly on GOP fundraising.Here's a story of where the GOP used to be:Back in 2006, I asked a couple of conservative Republican congressmen to give blurbs for my book on corporate welfare. “My boss loves the book,” one of their top aides said, “but we’re not going to put his name on it." Why not, I asked. "Who do you...

A striking aspect of the new Pew survey on Jewish Americans is how liberal Jews are. Is it good for the Democrats? You bet.Why do people vote the way to do? For swing voters, the answer is usually the state of the economy. For most, however, voting patterns are surprisingly fixed. People tend to vote for one party consistently over time. For Jewish American voters, the party of choice has been the Democratic party. Conservatives have been trying to crack the code for a number of years on how to get Jewish voters over to their side. Based on the...