Free Republic

The director of the Office of Rulings and Agreements, which oversees the determinatons of tax-exempt organizations, is a donor to Barack Obama. Holly Paz donated $2,000 to Obama’s 2008 campaign, according to Open Secrets, which maintains a database of individual political donations. An inspector general’s report released yesterday concluded that the IRS improperly targeted Tea Party and other conservative groups for undue scrutiny, and Paz heads the office in which the wrongdoing is said to have occurred. National Review Online reported earlier today that agency officials are currently copying the hard drives of every employee on Paz’s watch. That data...

Obama's 2009 inauguration was bolstered by the feelings of "hope and change" that boosted the President to electoral victory. His official inauguration committee eschewed corporate donations back then, but times have changed dramatically. The Presidential Inauguration Committee set a goal of raising $50 million for Barack Obama's second inauguration, but have turned to big corporations and big labor unions in order to make it there. AT&T, Bank of America, FedEx, Microsoft and Coca-Cola are all on the official list of inauguration donors this year. Joining those corporations are the American Federation of Government Employees, the American Postal Workers Union, the...

Several unions have contributed to President Obama’s inauguration. At least nine unions are listed as donors to the inauguration, according to the latest update on the Presidential Inaugural Committee’s website. The committee has been releasing donors’ names to the inauguration every Friday for the past several weeks. The unions that have donated to Obama’s second inauguration include the American Federation of Government Employees; the American Postal Workers Union; the International Association of Fire Fighters; the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers; the Laborers International Union of North America; and the United Food & Commercial Workers. Labor was a key ally of...

And the probe doesn’t involve some bit players in an obscure program, either.  The 1603 Program was one of the centerpieces of Barack Obama’s 2009 stimulus, designed to subsidize a transition from hydrocarbon-based energy to renewables in the residential market, and federal government sunk $13 billion into the effort.  Now the Inspector General of Treasury has opened a probe of the three largest providers of solar panel installations, who gained the most from the 1603 Program, and who may have fraudulently calculated their bills in order to claim more taxpayer cash: Three of the country’s most prolific installers of...

Sufyan Ben Qumu was classified as a 'medium to high' national security risk before his release from American custody Qumu reportedly was Osama bin Laden's driver and worked for the al-Qaeda founder's company in Sudan Libyans promised to keep him behind bars, but he was released in 2010 Qumu was a former Libyan army tank driver and became a leader of the rebels during the uprising A former al-Qaeda terrorist released from Guantanamo Bay is believed to be the leader of the attack on the US consulate in Benghazi, Libya, that killed four Americans, including the US Ambassador, it was...

The Free Beacon has a brief profile of Kareem Ahmed from TPM, one of the few million dollar donors to Obama’s SuperPACs. You’d be forgiven if you don’t recognize Ahmed’s name. Before this year, his political giving was limited to a few four-figure checks to California candidates. Several veteran California politics watchers contacted for this story had no idea who Ahmed was, either. But here’s the thing: so far in 2012, Ahmed’s contributions to Obama, Democrats, and the outside spending groups that support them have totaled more than $1.1 million. Ahmed’s wife, Tayyaba Farhat, has contributed another $75,000. At...

President Barack Obama’s campaign raised more than $150 million in September, which was a record haul for the 2012 cycle, but the campaign may be actively trying to block a story in the works about a “blockbuster donor scandal” that could put its fundraising numbers under intense scrutiny.

President Obama reelection campaign, rattled by his Wednesday night debate performance, could be in for even worse news. According to knowlegable sources, a national magazine and a national web site are preparing a blockbuster donor scandal story. Sources told Secrets that the Obama campaign has been trying to block the story. But a key source said it plans to publish the story Friday or, more likely, Monday.

How 'bout a little refresher re. Obama political Godfather  and actual (16-count!) convicted felon Tony Rezko...? The Syrian-born Rezko is an infamous Chicago slumlord, fast-food restauranteur, and sleazy political operator who played a key role in the Blagojevich case- as well as the unlikley ascension to power of Barrack Hussein Obama.Obama's longtime ally, friend, and top fundraiser was found guilty of 16/24 counts of felony influence peddling back in June 2008. Of course the story was mostly buried/detached from his bud Barry in the run-up to that year's most unfortunate (for us) presidential election whilst the jury convicted Rezko of wire...

Will the real Obama stand up???As Islamic bigot's dirty money contaminates Barack Obama - Is Obama leaning towards the "ideology" of Khalidi's OK of 'Islamic States Apartheid' and lying about Israel's true free & equal for all democracy smearing its will to survive against Arab racist terror with The poisonous myth of 'Israeli apartheid'? Follow the Money: Obama contributor Talat M. Othman 23 Feb 2008 by to be announced Khalidi, a "virulent critic of Israel", has "denounced Israel as an 'apartheid' state." Pipes wrote that Othman is "president of the founding committee of the Council of Islamic Organizations of Greater...

President Barack Obama publicly thanked a man the New York Post called a “gay-porn kingpin” at an Oregon fundraiser on Tuesday, according to the Weekly Standard. While speaking at a Portland campaign fundraiser, Obama thanked Terry Bean for organizing the event. … The (New York) Post said (in 2008), "Bean, the first gay on Sen. Obama's National Finance Committee, is the sole trustee of the Charles M. Holmes Foundation, which owned Falcon Studios, Jock Studios, and Mustang Studios, the producers of about $10 million worth of all-male pornography a year." …

Even as Newt Gingrich’s campaign teetered on the edge of collapse in March, the wife of a casino mogul gave a pro-Gingrich super PAC another $5 million. The contribution brought the Adelson family’s pro-Gingrich tally to $20 million — a figure Sheldon Adelson himself was floating in December, POLITICO reported. The Adelsons almost single-handedly funded Winning Our Future’s operations since its inception in December, but in recent days, Adelson has signaled he will put his wealth behind establishment Republican candidates. The super PAC, Winning Our Future, ended last month with $5.76 million in its account, having raised $5.05 million while...

White House Opens Door to Big Donors, and Lobbyists Slip In MIKE McINTIRE and MICHAEL LUO April 14, 2012 Last May, as a battle was heating up between Internet companies and Hollywood over how to stop online piracy, a top entertainment industry lobbyist landed a meeting at the White House with one of President Obama’s technology advisers. Dwight and Antoinette C. Bush in 2010. Ms. Bush visits the White House frequently. The lobbyist did not get there by himself. He was accompanied by Antoinette C. Bush, a well-connected Washington lawyer who has represented companies like Viacom, Sony and News Corporation...

A major contributor to President Barack Obama's re-election effort is accused of defrauding a businessman and impersonating a bank official. Donor Abake Assongba gave more than $50,000 to Obama this election season. But her past legal troubles, which include unpaid debts, are creating a new headache for Obama's campaign. The allegations were first reported Sunday by The Washington Post. ..

President Obama raised several hundred million dollars during the 2008 election, more than twice what Republican rival John McCain raised and a far cry more than any other U.S. President before him. The result? Obama’s fundraising achievements have ushered in a degree of crony capitalism Americans have quite possibly never witnessed before. The voluminous scale of political favoritism, and in some cases downright corruption, in the current administration has undermined taxpayers and trampled on the U.S. Constitution, as corporate bailouts, legislative kickbacks, and shady government appointments have become commonplace in the Obama White House. Crony capitalism, also referred to as...

General Electric, one of the largest corporations in America, filed a whopping 57,000-page federal tax return earlier this year but didn't pay taxes on $14 billion in profits. The return, which was filed electronically, would have been 19 feet high if printed out and stacked.

On the eve of his appearance before the House Energy and Commerce Committee to discuss the Solyndra bankruptcy, the Energy Department has provided reporters with advance excerpts from Secretary Chu’s prepared statement. The remarks indicate that Chu will continue to defend the green energy loan guarantee program that gave the now-bankrupt solar panel company more than $527 million in taxpayer dollars.

(Reuters) - Contributors to President Barack Obama's campaign did not influence the decisions on government aid to the now-bankrupt solar panel maker Solyndra, Energy Secretary Steven Chu told National Public Radio. Chu defended decisions made by the Energy Department on the $535 million loan guarantee to Solyndra in his first major interview on what has become a nagging political issue for the Obama administration. The interview, on Tuesday night, comes just ahead of his testimony to the House Energy and Commerce committee on Thursday, where Republicans probing the loan are expected to grill him on the taxpayer-funded aid to Solyndra....

The National Lawyers Guild says it has obtained a court that allows Occupy Wall St. protesters to return with tents to a New York City park. The guild says the injunction prevents the city from enforcing park rules on Occupy Wall Street protesters. Mayor Michael Bloomberg says the city knew about the court order but has not seen it. He says the city plans to go court immediately.

While the professional Left trashes Wall Street, they might want to consider how their current President got elected.  The Sunlight Foundation reports that Barack Obama didn’t just win the Wall Street sweepstakes in 2008 over John McCain — he’s done better at getting Wall Street cash than any other President in the last 20 years: Despite his rhetorical attacks on Wall Street, a study by the Sunlight Foundation’s Influence Project shows that President Barack Obama has received more money from Wall Street than any other politician over the past 20 years, including former President George W. Bush.In 2008, Wall Street’s largesse accounted for...

Bloomberg reports that the FBI is investigating Solyndra for accounting fraud, according to a source close to the solar panel company. The report confirms assumptions that the Department of Justice has been looking into whether Solyndra misrepresented the company's financial situation in order to obtain — and then refinance — a $534 million loan from the federal government. We've previously written that Solyndra executives assured the administration that the company's future was bright, even as the company's internal audits showed its finances deteriorating. The company declared bankruptcy earlier this month, prompting the FBI probe, as well as two Congressional investigations.

The Energy Department continued to hurry up approvals for green energy loans before the program ends Sept. 30. Late Thursday, the DOE approved a $132 million loan guarantee for Abengoa Bioenergy Project, a Kansas-based cellulosic ethanol plant. The project would create 65 permanent jobs — or just over $2 million per position. That’s actually a big improvement from Wednesday’s DOE approvals of more than $1 billion in loans to two green projects promising 52-55 permanent jobs.

Despite the growing Solyndra scandal, yesterday the Department of Energy approved $1 billion in new loans to green energy companies -- including a $737 million loan guarantee to a company known as SolarReserve: SolarReserve LLC, a closely held renewable energy developer, received a $737 million U.S. Energy Department loan guarantee to build a solar-thermal project in Nevada. The 110-megawatt Crescent Dunes project, near Tonopah, Nevada, will use the sun’s heat to create steam that drives a turbine, the agency said today in a e-mailed statement. SolarReserve is based in Santa Monica, California. On SolarReserve's website is a list of "investment...

The Department of Energy is set on Thursday to announce whether nine federal loan guarantees amounting to $6.5 billion for green energy projects will get final approval. The number of full-time, permanent jobs they would create? According to the DOE's own figures, a grand total of 283. That is nearly $23 million per job. It's also a drop in the bucket toward the five million green jobs President Obama promised as a candidate in 2008.

The law firms representing two prominent Solyndra executives are major Democratic Party donors, The Daily Caller has learned. Reuters first reported that the bankrupt company’s CEO, Brian Harrison, and CFO, W.G. Stover, plan to refuse to talk openly to congressional investigators about how their company squandered $535 million in taxpayer money. They will invoke their Fifth Amendment right not to self-incriminate themselves at a House Energy and Commerce Committee hearing on Friday. The law firms representing the executives are Orrick, Harrington and Sutcliffe, and Keker and Van Nest. Both are major contributors to Democrats and both have handsomely helped President...

This is all for now: Solyndra execs will decline to testify at Congressional hearing Friday, according to letters from their attorneys obtained by Reuters.

Ridiculously false choices and rhetoric ruled the evening when the National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers hosted a closed-media conference call with Vice President Joe Biden to inform their members about the latest government school and teachers’ union bailout. In a recording obtained exclusively by PublicSchoolSpending.com, Biden explained the administration is seeking to spend $30 billion to create a “Teacher Layoff Prevention Fund.�  He also said that many schools today are “deciding whether or not to heat the school or keep a teacher.� Like school stimuli-past, Biden said schools would not be able to bank the money,...

The White House just put out the list for President Obama's jobs-focused address this evening. Those who will be in the gallery with first lady Michelle Obama include: — Jeffrey Immelt, CEO of General Electric. He's chairman of the President's Council on Jobs and Competitiveness. So look for Obama to again stress the importance of technology, research and development. — Steve Case, who co-founded America Online and is, the White House says, "one of America's most accomplished entrepreneurs and philanthropists." He fills the "American can-do/entrepreneurial spirit" slot. — Darline Miller, CEO of Permac Industries, a Minnesota company that makes "precision...

The White House invited several guests to attend President Barack Obama's speech to the nation on jobs: JEFFREY IMMELT -- Chairman and CEO of GE; chairman of President's Council on Jobs and Competitiveness. STEVE CASE -- Chairman and CEO of Revolution LLC and co-founder of America Online; KENNETH CHENAULT -- Chairman and CEO of American Express;. RICHARD TRUMKA -- President of AFL-CIO; member of President's Council on Jobs and Competitiveness. GOV. MARTIN O'MALLEY -- Maryland governor. MAYOR MARK MALLORY -- Two-term mayor of Cincinnati. MAYOR ANTONIO VILLARAIGOSA -- Two-term mayor of Los Angeles. GRACEY IBARRA ---- Certified nursing assistant and...

The Left’s working motto consistently turns out to be “do as I say, not as I do.�  How else could they possibly make bold pronouncements to the media but live the exact opposite? The day before his declaration of war on the Tea Party movement, Teamsters President James Hoffa appeared on CNN and deemed American companies as “unpatriotic,� according to the Political Ticker. “I think the president should challenge the patriotism of these American corporations that are sitting on the sidelines,� Hoffa said. “The problem in America isn’t that we don’t have enough money. We’ve got more money than any...

http://www.mercurynews.com/breaking-news/ci_18851389

This morning’s predictably dejecting jobs report provided the GOP presidential candidates with an apt opportunity to cast the president in an unflattering light — and to contrast his approach with what their own would be. Memorably, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney framed his statement in a way that leaves voters displeased with the economy little choice but to vote Obama out of office. “When you see what this president has done to the economy in just three years, you know why America doesn’t want to find out what he can do in eight,” former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney said. Importantly,...

For those who may have written off Big Labor’s agenda after they failed to push the Employee ‘Forced’ Choice Act (EFCA) through Congress last year, they may want to take a careful look at the actions being undertaken by President Obama’s Administration and they’ll quickly find that the job-killing movement is alive and well. In fact, EFCA has been resurrected in three specific changes being advanced by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) and Department of Labor (DoL). And this should not be a surprise to anyone, as union bosses have been very clear that they expect Obama to pay...

President Obama’s campaign committee is moving a fund-raiser featuring Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel from the Pfizer world headquarters to another location in New York City after The Boston Globe inquired about the propriety of a major pharmaceutical company hosting an event that could benefit the administration regulating it. “This is a general fund-raising event for the campaign that has nothing to do with a specific company and the attendees will not be from any one company or sector,” Obama spokesman Ben LaBolt said this afternoon in a statement. A Pfizer spokesman did not address the change in locale but defended...

An NALP study finds Law School Class of 2010 Starting Pay Fell 20% as Jobs ErodedStarting salaries for last year’s U.S. law school graduates plummeted 20 percent as private practice jobs eroded, according to a report by the National Association for Law Placement. The national median starting salary at law firms dropped to $104,000 from $130,000 in 2009, reflecting a shift in the distribution of jobs and salary adjustments at some firms, the NALP said today. The report cited information submitted by 192 laws schools and covering 93 percent of 2010 graduates. Aggregate starting salaries fell because graduates found fewer jobs...

Facebook’s managers are deploying a new software upgrade that will dismantle myriad groups of like-minded political activists unless they get a special software-key from the company. But Facebook manager are providing very limited information about which groups are being favored with the new key, prompting some activists to complain about possible political favoritism among Facebook managers, and many other activists to experiment with techniques and tricks to get the needed upgrade-key. “Who is being given the upgrade?” asked Pamela Geller, the New York organizer of a 15,000-member group opposed to Islamist political groups. Without the special key, groups lose access...

General Electric Co. reported a 77% increase in first-quarter earnings, lifted by marked improvement at its GE Capital financing arm and gains at most of its industrial units. The company also boosted its quarterly dividend by a penny to 15 cents. The move marks GE's third dividend increase in the past year, although the payout remains well short of GE's 31-cent dividend before the financial crisis and economic downturn. Many companies have been boosting dividends, looking to give cash back to shareholders as the need to hoard it wanes amid an improved economy.

Federal authorities, capping a three-year investigation, are preparing insider-trading charges that could ensnare consultants, investment bankers, hedge-fund and mutual-fund traders and analysts across the nation, according to people familiar with the matter. The criminal and civil probes, which authorities say could eclipse the impact on the financial industry of any previous such investigation, are examining whether multiple insider-trading rings reaped illegal profits totaling tens of millions of dollars, the people say. Some charges could be brought before year-end, they say.

Mox News video Anderson Cooper on Chertoffs/others in government with ties to the Scanner Company being sold to the TSA. It may be AC but it is an interesting video detailing how scummy all these ties are.

Under a little-noticed provision of the recently passed financial-reform legislation, the Securities and Exchange Commission no longer has to comply with virtually all requests for information releases from the public, including those filed under the Freedom of Information Act. The law, signed last week by President Obama, exempts the SEC from disclosing records or information derived from "surveillance, risk assessments, or other regulatory and oversight activities." Given that the SEC is a regulatory body, the provision covers almost every action by the agency, lawyers say. Congress and federal agencies can request information, but the public cannot. That argument comes despite...