Free Republic

For years the Virginia Citizens Defense League (VCDL) has been rallying members to attend its annual Lobby Day at the Virginia General Assembly on Martin Luther King Day. In one respect this year is no different in that the League's Lobby Day is scheduled to start at 9AM on Monday, January 18, 2010 (Martin Luther King day). But in another respect 2010 is different - following impressive victories by pro-gun candidates for the House of Delegates, Governor, Lieutenant Governor, and Attorney General, VCDL's 2010 VCDL Lobby Day theme is "Transforming Gun Rights in Virginia." And the group is expecting results....

On Sunday evening at the Grand Hyatt Hotel in downtown Washington, D.C., J-Street opened its first ever-national policy conference. Officially founded over a year ago, the self-proclaimed "pro-Israel, pro-peace" lobby was birthed amid controversy. While J-Street positioned itself as the voice of mainstream American Jewish opinion on Israel, critics (myself included) argued it was a left-wing front far from the mainstream.

Hello to all, Thursday, Sept. 17, the MassLPA will be hosting a celebration of the constitution and all of our liberties at Nurse's hall on Beacon hill. The event will start with a flag raising ceremony and the "Pledge of Allegience"at 9:00AM. Starting at 10:00AM there will be speakers, most are members of the LPA, some will be semi-celebrity (politicians). There will be members of the Western Mass 912 project in attendance and some will be speaking. After the speaking event we will have a coffee hour and then move on to lobbying efforts. This should be a wonderful celebration...

It isn’t just U.S. companies or groups that push for their causes on Capitol Hill. Thousands of times each year, lobbyists for foreign governments and other overseas organizations reach out to members of Congress and other U.S. leaders to make their case on issues important to them.But counting up those thousands of contacts hasn’t been easy. Records detailing what foreign entities are lobbying, who they’re contacting and why are filed on paper forms, sometimes in handwriting that’s little more than a scrawl. After prodding from open-government groups, the Department of Justice put scanned copies of the forms on its Web...

General Motors reduced its lobbying spending in the second quarter by only 1.4% compared to the first quarter, even though the second quarter saw the company go bankrupt, be taken over by the government, and announce it was cancelling its outside lobbying contracts. In April, May, and June, GM spent $2,760,000 on lobbying according to its Q2 lobbying filing, compared to $2,800,000 in the first quarter.

Financial lobby gears up effort against Obama planBy Silla Brush Posted: 07/02/09 12:35 PM [ET] A coalition of financial services interests is in the process of organizing a major lobbying campaign against the Obama administration's plan for a Consumer Financial Protection Agency. The plans are not yet final, but among the groups and firms in the discussion are the American Financial Services Association, Financial Services Roundtable, Mortgage Bankers Association and Community Bankers Association, according to two industry sources familiar with the plans. The budget could be as high as several millions of dollars to organize grassroots opposition to the plan,...

Unless you've taken a very long Memorial Day vacation, you've no doubt heard the big news. President Obama has picked an anti-gun radical to replace Justice David Souter on the Supreme Court. Obama's pick is Judge Sonia Sotomayor, who is currently on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second District. There she has racked up an anti-Second Amendment record and has displayed contempt for the rule of law under the Constitution. The Heller decision put the Supreme Court in support of the Constitutional protection of the individual right to keep and bear arms. Sotomayor, a politically correct lover of...

Note: The following text is a quote: THE BRIEFING ROOM • THE BLOG Monday, April 27th, 2009 at 1:03 pm Update on Lobbyist Contacts Regarding the Recovery Act In the spirit of transparency, Norm Eisen, special counsel to the president for ethics and government reform, asked us to pass along this update on the President’s restrictions on lobbyist contacts regarding the Recovery Act. President Obama has made historic commitments to putting the public interest first and to cracking down on special interests and, in particular, lobbying abuses. To accomplish that, he has put forward the toughest rules in history closing...

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...