Free Republic

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - California's Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, CEOs and celebrity doctors took up U.S. President Barack Obama's campaign for healthcare reform on Monday, saying millions of Americans need help.

The corn-ethanol industry, which wouldn't exist without government intervention, his hired former General turned influence-peddler Wes Clark to lobby for an increase in the proportion of corn ethanol in motor fuel, from 10% to 15%. Corn ethanol is at best fuel-INefficient, raising the cost of driving needlessly, and at worst, it will damage your vehicle. And you get to pay for it!

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama's appointment as head of a U.S. intelligence council has been identified by the Center for Security Policy as a member of the 'Iran lobby'. Also, government sources said Charles Freeman, a former U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia and appointed to head the National Intelligence Council, has expressed anti-Semitic views in government meetings. At one meeting, the sources said, Freeman turned to Jewish staffers of Congress and questioned their loyalty to the United States. A report by the Center for Security Policy identified Freeman as a member of the so-called Iran lobby, which has been pressing...

WASHINGTON – Lawyers hired by mortgage finance giant Freddie Mac are quietly investigating the firm's own $2 million lobbying campaign, The Associated Press has learned. The lobbying effort helped quash proposed new regulations on the company before the housing market collapsed. It was not immediately clear how much Freddie Mac is spending to investigate its own conduct or whether it is spending any federal bailout money on the internal probe. The firm was placed under U.S. government control due to its massive investment losses. One of Washington's leading law firms, Covington & Burling LLP, has spent more than a month...

The minting of 4 new Lincoln cents has got the anti-penny crowd in an uproar - complete with civil disobedience calling for the end of penny use. They're vexed at the "zinc lobby."

You Will Need To: Bring a photo ID to get into the Capitol Know your State Representative’s and State Senator’s names before you arrive Call or E-mail Kathy with Number Attending _____ Rally _____ Lunch **(Lunch location below) YOUR VOICE NEEDS TO BE HEARD! Come and let us stand together to protect God-ordained marriage in Illinois! www.IllinoisFamily.org Wednesday, November 19, 2008 Statewide Citizens Rally & Lobby Day 1:00 p.m. at Lincoln Statue

Groups representing retirees, corporate executives and small-business owners are mounting a furious last-minute lobbying effort in support of a $700 billion rescue plan for the financial markets. Leaders of the AARP, the Business Roundtable and the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) said their own members have increasingly called or e-mailed their Washington offices to relate stories about how the financial crisis is affecting them. The dramatic stock slide on Monday after the House rejected the bailout plan depleted retirement accounts, for example. Small businesses, meanwhile, have had trouble refinancing loans for important business supplies. Those personal accounts are being...

The financial panic has opened a new front in Barack Obama's supposed war on lobbyists. "We're here," Mr. Obama said this week by way of explaining the cause of our financial problems, "because for too long, the doors of Washington have been thrown open to an army of lobbyists and special interests." Talk like this is political elevator music: fuzzy and more or less constant. Yet there's a reason promises to transform the ways of Washington keep coming. To wit, would-be saviors like Mr. Obama are never willing to discipline themselves and their allies, only some other guy who...

Obama site moderator also calls pro-Clinton group “virulent” We are no longer talking about the Obama campaign’s tolerance of user-generated hate speech at My.BarackObama.com, which is reprehensible enough. We are now talking about official statements from the official campaign staffers who moderate and administer the site.We reported previously (http://www.israpundit.com/2008/?p=1714) that Emily, an Obama campaign staffer who moderates My.BarackObama.com, counseled a user to use “Israel Lobby” instead of “Jewish Lobby.” The Obama campaign apparently felt that it had to delete a verbatim quote from one of its own staffers after it appeared here and elsewhere. A screen shot of the posting...

BREAKING SCANDAL: Obama Campaign Approved “Israel Lobby” Terminology …possibly as code for “Jewish Lobby” A My.BarackObama.com user re-posted the following E-mail (http://my.barackobama.com/page/community/post/emk/gG5VZB) he received from a site administrator or moderator, who is therefore an official representative of Barack Obama’s campaign. Emily is obviously counseling EMK to use “Israel Lobby” (the title of Walt and Mearsheimer’s infamous book) as code for “Jewish Lobby.” Hi [EMK], Thank you so much for your involvement in the My.BarackObama online community. Your voice is valued here; however, we were forced to remove your recent blog post that referred to the “Jewish lobby.” Please use the...

Those members of congress who are Christian, have voted more towards the right wing of the Republican Party, and have indicated extremist ideas that are detrimental to our remaining a secular society united by common “American” beliefs and values. Instead, they have become very divisive rather than uniting and have contributed to the vehement rhetoric that seems to pervade our public discourse. They would rather pander to those evangelicals that have taken up the mantle of representing “true” American values. However, those same values allowed Christian Cavalrymen to massacre Native Americans, slavery, and the lynching of African Americans by white...

I have it on good authority that radicals within the powerful rightwing Jewish Lobby including [AIPAC] American Israel Public Affairs Committee are vexed, frustrated and displeased with Barack Obama's refusal to accept special interest money and consequentially seek his crucifixion. The concern is that the Senator's policy prevents them from exerting influence or extracting favor from his administration should he become the next President in these United States of America. In an effort to allay their fears, Senator Obama has offered his assurance that if elected, an Obama administration would not be a foe- yet this does not seem to...

AIPAC's Lack of Cojones About Senator Obama Last week during the Shavuot holiday I spoke to some people who were present at Senator Barack Obama's speech at AIPAC. Before he spoke attendees were reminded that Obama was their guest and that he should be treated as a respected guest, a not so hidden warning not to confront Obama with the truth about his false support of Israel. But once he made his pronouncement of an undivided Israeli capitol of Jerusalem. Of course he waited till after he left the convention to back off that pledge. AIPAC has never shirked its...

“How the Jewish Lobby Works,” (http://tinyurl.com/5m545r) posted by Juan Carlos from Knoxville Tennessee at Barack Obama’s Web site. This is not the first posting of this type from Mr. Carlos... This is important because it shows that Mr. Carlos is not a fly by night agent provacateur who is posting the most offensive possible material at Obama’s Web site to make Obama look bad. …NO LOBBY IS FEARED MORE or catered to by politicians than the Jewish Lobby. If a politician does not play ball with the Jewish Lobby, he will not get elected, or re-elected, and he will either...

Faced with a national outcry over the high price of gasoline and soaring profits for energy companies, the oil and gas industry is waging an unusually pricey campaign to burnish its image. The American Petroleum Institute, the industry's main lobby, has embarked on a multiyear, multimedia, multimillion-dollar campaign, which includes advertising in the nation's largest newspapers, news conferences in many state capitals and trips for bloggers out to drilling platforms at sea. The intended audience is elected officials and the public, with an emphasis on the latter. The industry is trying to convince voters -- who, in turn, will make...

William Daroff is vice president for public policy and director of the Washington office at United Jewish Communities, an organization representing America's Jewish federations. In other words, he's a lobbyist. Daroff is also one of the country's better-connected Jewish operatives. In recent months, he has been called upon to moderate dozens of panels aimed at Jewish activists and professionals, dealing with the hot topic of the day: the 2008 election and the Jewish community. This election has reignited an old debate: Which party is better for Israel—the Republicans or the Democrats? Assuming that Jewish voters care about this question, the...

“Alan from Upland CA” has finally stepped up to challenge Tony Wicher’s anti-Semitic hate speech at Barack Obama’s official Web site. ...Alan replies to Mr. Wicher’s “Obama’s Jewish Problem” as follows. Obama’s sanction of Wicher’s commentary, plus his unbelieveable cowardice (heck, he all but called Abraham Lincoln a “Racist”) in denouncing the Black Nazi Wright is enough of a turn-off. Wicher just adds more fuel to the fire. Could have been set by David Duke or Farrakhan... ...Tony Wicher’s and Desmond Tutu’s terminology for Zionists and even Jews is identical to material from David Duke’s Web site. Again, all this...

Wicher repeatedly refers to Israel as an apartheid state, and in fact claims that Israel’s treatment of Palestinian Authority Arabs is “worse than apartheid.” ...He dismisses any who call his claims of Israeli “apartheid” anti-Semitic as members of the “Zionist thought police.”

I have been discussing the Jewish/Israel lobbies in the US. Today I received the weekly letter from MJ Rosenberg of the Israel Policy Forum entitled After Bush. He advises that notwithstanding how important the resolution of the Arab/Israel conflict is, that "Other than mouthing the usual pieties about standing with Israel, candidates approach the issue with the proverbial ten foot pole." True enough. He tells why. Although most voters, and certainly most voters who care about Israel, favor active diplomacy to end the conflict, the loudest voices on this issue tend to be fervent supporters of the status quo. They...

Tony Wicher’s “My Favorite Antisemite” at the Official Website of Barack Obama 2008 Presidential Campaign attacks the Zionist Thought Police and then quotes Desmond Tutu, who suggests that the “powerful Jewish Lobby” will fall like Hitler, Mussolini, Idi Amin, and other dictators. When circulating this story to your associates, please keep the following in mind: (1) This is Barack Obama’s official campaign site, and it is under his editorial control. (2) Tony Wicher’s material cannot be written off as a hit and run smear job by a Republican or Clinton operative. His point score, a measurement of his activity at...