Free Republic

Lawmakers line up behind plan that dumps Electoral College without constitutional amendment The National Popular Vote effort, which could see the 14 states with the largest populations decide the presidency, is more than halfway to its goal of legally bypassing the Electoral College established in the Constitution. Last week, the Maine state Senate voted in support of the plan one week after both houses of the New York legislature overwhelmingly supported it. Now the governors of both states will need to decide whether to formally back the National Popular Vote, or NPV. The plan is more than halfway to its...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CFSHGhq19CM&feature=share

Some folks who’ve had enough of Reid’s shenanigans are starting to weigh in, such as American Commitment President Phil Kerpen. His group is sponsoring an Internet-only ad buy – which is the way smart people are starting to do things – attacking the alliance between the Steyers and Reid. The ad uses footage of Reid saying nasty things about conservatives Charles and David Koch, two men whom the Nevada Democrat has alleged more than once have the entire Republican establishment in their hip pocket, but in a way that cleverly hints that such things could just as easily and more...

The leader of the U.S. Senate repeatedly has attacked two private U.S. citizens for using their money to advance the conservative causes in which they believe. Reid's latest attack on "shadow billionaires" David and Charles Koch came Thursday, at a news conference to push legislation raising the minimum wage.

Senate majority leader Harry Reid has a whole page on his official Senate.gov website devoted to revealing "THE FACTS ABOUT THE KOCH BROTHERS." One of the alleged facts promoted on Reid's website is that the Kochs do not pay any corporate taxes: “They are known for bankrolling conservative, Libertarian and Tea Party causes and became poster boys for corporate tax reform last year when an Obama Administration official suggested Koch is organized as an S Corp. and so pays no corporate level taxes.” The claim that the Koch brothers don't pay corporate income taxes was first made by former White...

A major development occurred today in the scandal surrounding the Washington Post’s attempt to advance Democratic Party talking points by falsely linking Koch Industries to the Keystone Pipeline. In the unlikely event that you are not already familiar with the story, you should begin by reading this post and this one, as well as the one from last October where I dismantled the International Forum on Globalization report that was the basis for the Washington Post’s story of March 20. The facts, very briefly, are these: Koch Industries has no interest in the Keystone Pipeline; it has not lobbied in...

Ukraine is raising the price of gas for domestic consumers by more than 50 per cent from May 1 and will implement further rises under a fixed timetable until 2018, an official of state energy company Naftogaz said on Wednesday. The step, which will be widely unpopular with ordinary Ukrainians who have grown used to subsidized gas prices from the Soviet era, were taken in response to demands by the International Monetary Fund.

George Soros' Giant Globalist Footprint in Ukraine's Turmoil 14 March 2014 Soros' activist funding aids the CFR one-world agenda to subvert genuine Ukrainian independence aspirations and trap Ukraine in socialist EU/IMF perpetual debt trap....

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., has spent the last several days attacking the Koch brothers in an obvious attempt to demonize the conservative billionaires in true Alinsky fashion. But given that the Koch brothers have been targeted with death threats by Reid’s fellow travelers on the left, and given the frequency and tenor of Reid’s recent attacks, one question needs to be asked: Does Harry Reid want the Koch brothers murdered? We did a search on Twitter to see what the rabid leftists there have said in the last couple of months. Here’s just a sample: Jordan Kratz @gorehound13...

On the off chance you might encounter people who don't understand why George Soros and Monsanto might want the Ukraine.... The official title of the tsars was "Tsar of all the Russias", meaning primarily 'Great Russia' (Russia), 'White Russia' (Belorus), and 'Little Russia' (Ukraine). That is the heart of the Slavic Orthodox world and Ukraine is the breadbasket of that world. The Ukraine could feed everybody from the Volga to the Atlantic and that in fact was Hitler's plan; the idea was to build a super-gauge train to haul foodstuffs from Ukraine to Europe and, as I read it at...

Ever the paragon of civility and class, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) used a provocative homophone Tuesday to describe Republicans’ association with the Koch brothers. “Senate Republicans, Madame President, are addicted to Koch,” Reid said from the Senate floor, pausing a few seconds before continuing his remarks. “In fact, Senate Republicans hardly need the [National Republican Senatorial Committee] anymore, which for decade after decade was their main funding tool for the Republican Senate. Not any longer — the Koch brothers take care of that.” It was Reid’s latest broadside against the GOP and “Koch-backed groups” that have aired advertisements...

Led by Manchurian candidate and old warhorse himself Senator John McCain, of course. Calls for immediate actions against Russia (even though admitting Obama, not unlike himself, is incompetent, incapable, impotent and incontinent). http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2014/03/01/congress-response-to-ukraine-crisis/5926691/

One day every quarter, the world's big fund managers reveal some of what they're buying and selling in their 13-F regulatory filings. Generally speaking, these revelations aren't taken too seriously as they are 45-day-old snapshots. But over the weekend, one gigantic $1.3 billion position raised some eyebrows. Soros Fund Management disclosed that it held put options on 7,090,000 shares of the SPDR S&P 500 ETF (SPY) at the end of Q4. Puts protect the holder of the option from declining prices. Soros' position makes money if $1.3 billion worth of the SPY declines in value. And at $1.3 billion, this...

A curious finding emerged in the latest 13F by Soros Fund Management, the family office investment vehicle managing the personal wealth of George Soros. Actually, two curious findings: the first was that the disclosed Assets Under Management as of December 31, 2013 rose to a record $11.8 billion (this excludes netting and margin, and whatever one-time positions Soros may have gotten an SEC exemption to not disclose: for a recent instance of this, see Greenlight Capital's Micron fiasco, and the subsequent lawsuit of Seeking Alpha which led to the breach of David Einhorn's holdings confidentiality). The second one is that...

George Soros just loves to meddle in American politics - especially if it's in support of liberal causes. Soros's Open Society Foundation proudly claimed to have given $100 million dollars to "immigrant rights" projects in the United States. Of the $16.7 million of this money that BMI identified, at least $5,300,755, nearly a third, went to organizations that also supported other liberal causes, including abortion, gay marriage and Obamacare. With $38.9 million in revenue in 2010 alone, the National Council on La Raza ($2,410,000 in Soros funding) calls itself "the largest national Hispanic civil rights and advocacy organization in the...

George Soros' ex girlfriend, Adriana Ferreyr, lost her temper at her former flame during Tuesday’s deposition, according to court papers. George Soros’ former girlfriend came out swinging at her billionaire ex during a private deposition for her multi-million dollar lawsuit against the octogenarian, newly filed court papers allege. Adriana Ferreyr, a South American soap actress, clocked Soros in the head, knocked the glasses off his California lawyer Martin Singer, cursed his other prominent lawyer William Zabel and even screamed at her own high powered attorney William Beslow, according to papers filed Friday by Singer.

The Washington Post recently published a quixotic editorial maintaining that the left has no deep-pocketed financiers like the right does in the much written about and thoroughly maligned Koch brothers. In its editorial, the paper laments that Democrat groups have no one like the Kochs. For the Post, Reid Wilson wrote that for "Democratic professionals who actually run campaigns, the thing that frustrates them most about the Koch brothers network is that there’s no real equivalent on their side."

(Reuters) - The United States and Europe exchanged angry words with Russia on Saturday in a tug-of-war over Ukraine, with U.S., EU and NATO leaders saying Moscow must not strong-arm Kiev into an unpopular alliance. At conference in Munich where Western diplomats met leaders of the Ukrainian opposition, United States Secreatary of State John Kerry said the protesters believe "their futures do not have to lie with one country alone, and certainly not coerced". "Nowhere is the fight for a democratic, European future more important today than in Ukraine," he said. "The United States and EU stand with the people...

US Senator for Arizona John McCain (L) talks with Soros Fund Management Chairman George Soros at the World Economic Forum in Davos on January 23, 2014. Some 40 world leaders gather in the Swiss ski resort Davos.

<p>Billionaires George Soros and Michael Dell have been dragged into a nasty lawsuit against former NBA great Magic Johnson over his prepaid credit card, the Magic Card.</p> <p>The moguls are principals of OneWest Bank, which entrepreneur Reed Wallace is accusing, along with the former NBA great Johnson, of stealing his concept for a Magic-backed credit card.</p>