Free Republic

House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) and Subcommittee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio.) issued the following statement: The fact that Americans were targeted by the IRS because of their political beliefs is unconscionable. The Committee will aggressively follow up on the IG report and hold responsible officials accountable for this political retaliation.

Former Illinois state Rep. Robin Kelly, whose campaign received a $2 million boost from New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, easily captured Tuesday’s special election to replace former U.S. Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. The win for the Matteson Democrat was widely expected as the Chicago-area district, which Jackson represented from 1995 until late last year, has been a Democratic stronghold for roughly six decades. Kelly emerged from a crowded field in the February primary by focusing heavily on anti-gun efforts and was helped by ads from Bloomberg’s super PAC. Kelly, 56, vowed to become a leader in the federal fight...

<p>Undeterred by his election defeat last fall, former Congressman Allen West is still raising money while launching a political action committee “to expose and combat the Obama Administration and its progressive plans.”</p> <p>“We love our great nation too much to sit back and take our loss in 2012 as the final verdict on America,” West, a Republican from Palm Beach Gardens, told prospective donors on Tuesday. “That's why I intend to use the new-found freedom I've been given to take my efforts to defeat the Obama liberal progressive agenda to the next level.”</p>

Discredited political consultant, blathering TV talking head, and big-bux fundraiser/PAC-man Karl Rove was once hailed by George W Bush as 'The Architect' in the wake of the 2004 campaign victory he had engineered. In retrospect, we'd probably have been better off in the long-term letting John Kerry try and deal with the earthshaking real estate collapse his Dems' own affirmative-action housing initiatives were soon to bring us. Instead, Rove -as White House Senior Adviser and Deputy Chief-of-Staff- resided over a Bush 2nd-term popularity dive so steep and so politically damaging to the GOP brand that the United States seems to have shifted...

Some grass-roots supporters of Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton have formed a super PAC to help a potential Clinton presidential campaign in 2016—even though Clinton says she hasn’t decided her plans. A super PAC called “Ready for Hillary” was registered with the Federal Election Commission on Friday and the group plans to launch its website in the coming weeks. …

A group of Hillary Clinton supporters is launching a campaign to draft her to run for president — the first major push from an outside group for her to run. The group, “Ready for Hillary,” filed as a super-PAC with the Federal Election Commission late last week and plans to roll out a website in the coming weeks. It has already been active online, with nearly 50,000 Twitter followers and almost 30,000 people following the group on Facebook. The effort is being spearheaded by Allida Black and Judy Beck, two longtime Clinton supporters who were on Clinton’s Virginia Women’s Steering...

New York's Gabriel Sherman reports that Fox News is scaling back airtime for Republican pundit Karl Rove, in what appears to be a reprimand for Rove's meltdown during the network's live election broadcast. Sources told Sherman that Fox News chief Roger Ailes has ordered his staff to bench Rove and his fellow GOP pundit Dick Morris, two of the network's most vocal partisan voices whose predictions turned out to be spectacularly wrong. According to Sherman, producers must now get permission before booking Rove or Morris on Fox shows. The move comes as Fox takes steps to rehab its image in the wake...

Are Mini-PACs the wave of the future? Pivot Point Washington Super PAC is making waves by running anti-Obama ads on BET television in Cleveland and Seattle. The Super PAC is run by Dave Shemwell: (VIDEO AT LINK) Creator of Pro-Romney Super PAC in Washington Discusses Campaign Dave Shemwell joins “Race To The Wire” to explain his role in Pivot Point Washington, what he thinks about other Super PAC’s, and why he says there’s a need for more political discourse from each side in the Evergreen State. view full article The thing is, this Super PAC really is a mini-PAC as...

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...

Like Father, like Son; Jonathan Soros, Son of Billionaire George Soros, Jonathan Soros is the money-bags behind “The Friends of Democracy super PAC.” Soros, Jr. is spending $2 million to $3 million to oust eight House Republicans...

George Soros, the liberal billionaire investor who has largely laid low during the 2012 elections, announced $1.5 million in pledged donations Thursday to a trio of super PACs backing President Obama and congressional Democrats, PAC officials said. Soros, who became nationally prominent in 2004 when he spent more than $20 million on independent groups supporting Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.), will give $1 million to Priorities USA Action — which is supporting Obama — and $500,000 to Majority PAC and House Majority PAC, which are running ads on behalf of Democratic candidates for Congress. The move could signal a softening of...

If our corrupt media believe a Republican said something inappropriate at a fundraiser about the 47% of the American people the rest of us carry, the corrupt media attempt to destroy his campaign over it. However, if a sitting president appears to openly and brazenly break the laws surrounding the solicitation of super PAC money, this very same media dutifully report but refuse to talk about it: Speaking at a fundraiser hosted by the famous rapper and singer couple Jay-Z and Beyonce, President Barack Obama made comments, seemingly in jest, asking guests to help out his campaign against Republican nominee Mitt...

In an election year filled with secret campaign money, the Scotts Miracle-Gro Company has made the unlikely choice to go public with a big political donation. The Ohio-based company, familiar as the producer of a ubiquitous plant fertilizer, is now a political player, donating $200,000 in June to the Restore Our Future super PAC supporting Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney.

The Justice Department is investigating whether Las Vegas Sands Corp., owned by high-profile Republican donor Sheldon Adelson, broke federal law by failing to report millions of dollars of potentially laundered money transferred to its casinos by two high-rolling Las Vegas gamblers, according to the Wall Street Journal.

One of the fears that may instill the occasional bout of night terror among American pols is the possibility that “friendly” SuperPACs who don’t agree with the strategy, tactics, or message they ostensibly support will fall into a giant vat of unregulated cash and do something stupid and counter-productive. We may be about to see how effectively Republicans can keep that from happening, via a new Super-PAC created by the shady oppo researcher Stephen Marks that’s already released a web ad which is a small masterpiece of racism-posing-as-anti-racism. As ThinkProgress’ Josh Israel reports: FightBigotry.com, a new Super PAC registered with...

Forbes has confirmed that billionaire Sheldon Adelson, along with his wife Miriam, has donated $10 million to the leading Super PAC supporting presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney–and that’s just the tip of the iceberg....

WASHINGTON — A group of high-profile Republican strategists is working with a conservative billionaire on a proposal to mount one of the most provocative campaigns of the “super PAC” era and attack President Obama in ways that Republicans have so far shied away Timed to upend the Democratic National Convention in September, the plan would “do exactly what John McCain would not let us do,” the strategists wrote.

Welcome to the brave new world of super PAC spending. The New York Times reports that a Republican super PAC is planning a major attack on President Obama, rehashing a ghost from the 2008 campaign. A 54-page document leaked to the newspaper suggests that the president's one-time, controversial pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, is not only on the table, but the subject of a proposed ad campaign. The document, being circulated by a group of high-profile donors and consultants, outlines ads to begin around the time of the Democratic National Convention this summer and notes the aim is to "do exactly...

Bill Maher, the mad cap HBO host, is best known for his issues with conservative women. But he also seems to have even more twisted views on politics and race as only a white liberal could possess. The problem with Maher, race addled as he is, is that he does not understand conservatives do not adhere to his stereotype. Conservatives regard Obama as many things, the faculty lounge socialist, the fellow who ate puppies or even the man with parental abandonment issues. Way down there on the list is "that black guy." In short, conservatives judge Obama, as Martin Luther...

The American Action Network, a super-PAC that backs establishment Republicans, has pulled out of Indiana's Senate race, the latest bad omen for Sen. Richard Lugar (R-Ind.). "We've decided we're going to let this race play out," AAN spokesman Dan Conston told The Hill Friday evening.

It is terrible that conservatives are out there distorting the records of each candidate. Or worse passing along wrong information without checking facts. All of them have qualifications and disqualifications. But can we get away from what they say they will do and compare what they actually did when they were afforded governing power? I was talking to a nationally published conservative author and speaker today who had absolutely no clue that Newt Gingrich gave the “keynote” rebuttal AGAINST Al Gore on Cap and Trade legislation. This is a travesty not just of conservative media, but those we surround ourselves...

A national, nonpartisan “super PAC” targeting incumbents on both sides of the aisle reportedly is taking a hard look at two Bay Area House members.The Hill reported yesterday that the Campaign for Primary Accountability – which has already begun spending against Republicans and Democrats in other states, two of whom subsequently lost their primaries – is watching California representatives including Pete Stark, D-Fremont, and Anna Eshoo, D-Palo Alto.The campaign is targeting safe districts in which entrenched incumbents have what it deems to be credible challengers, taking a “throw the bums out” mentality to ousting lawmakers it believes have been on...

Mitt Romney has erased Rick Santorum’s lead in Wisconsin a week before the state’s Republican presidential primary, surging to a comfortable margin, according to a new poll from Marquette Law School. The poll shows Romney with 39 percent and Santorum at 31 percent. Ron Paul was at 11 percent in the state, and Newt Gingrich at 5 percent. In late February, the previous poll by the school found Santorum with a huge advantage in the state: 34 percent to Romney’s 18 percent. Romney’s boost has likely been helped by a huge influx of cash from his campaign and his super...

Romney's shadow backers dumping tens of millions of dollars per state to slander his opponents is enough of an advantage- but having a 24 hour news network to do his bidding demonstrates a PERCEIVED disadvantage on a David v. Goliath scale... (video)

President Obama held his first press conference in five months yesterday, in a bid to grab some media attention away from the Republican primaries on Super Tuesday. After retailing more of the wonderful Obamanomic ideas that have somehow failed to lift America out of grinding unemployment, soaring gas prices, and general economic malaise, he settled down to some questions, and of course the subject of the dust-up between radio host Rush Limbaugh and leftist agitator Sandra Fluke was broached.

AUSTIN, Texas, March 2, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Brandon Todd, a prominent Texas entrepreneur and Tea Party Leader, today announced the formation of a new Super PAC (Political Action Committee) to support the Presidential bid of former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich. Winning Freedom also announced the formation of two websites www.winningfreedom.org and www.newtgingrich360.com. Mr. Todd stated: "This is the most important election of our lifetime. It will have a profound impact on man's quest to rule itself and live in this world as a free people. "We as Americans will make the choice this year to lead mankind either...

Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign and the super PAC accepting million-dollar contributions to support him are barred by law from coordinating, yet they share many of the same top-level workers, a fact both groups have helped mask by paying high-level aides through companies that appear to exist largely as conduits to avoid disclosure. Months before a top Romney aide, Steve C. Roche, stopped working for the campaign, a company controlled by Mr. Roche was established and has since been paid $2 million by the super PAC, with a million-dollar check coming just three days after the last money publicly disbursed to...

An independent group supporting Newt Gingrich has received another “substantial” contribution from billionaire casino owner Sheldon Adelson and will launch TV ads in seven states this week, a source close to the group confirmed Monday. The source, who requested anonymity to speak freely, did not confirm the amount of the contribution but called it substantial and at least on par with two $5 million donations Adelson and his family have given previously. The group, known as Winning Our Future, will launch TV ads Tuesday in Georgia, Oklahoma, Ohio and Tennessee, with more to come Wednesday in Mississippi, Alabama and Kansas....

Ron Paul revels in the fact that he is the presidential candidate of America's small donors, receiving more contributions under $200 than any other Republican seeking the White House in 2012.But, like every other GOP presidential contender, he also has a mega-millionaire "sugar daddy" helping to fund a super PAC that is promoting Paul's candidacy.Yet while Newt Gingrich underwriter Sheldon Adelson and Rick Santorum super-supporter Foster Friess have shared the campaign stage - and the national political spotlight - with their candidates, Paul's benefactor, San Francisco entrepreneur Peter Thiel, has never met the Texas congressman he's aiding.Who is this mystery...

WASHINGTON — The political ad wars are coming to Tennessee, courtesy of the big money groups that are dumping millions of dollars into the GOP presidential race. Restore Our Future, a group backing Mitt Romney's campaign, has bought nearly $1 million worth of radio and TV airtime for an ad blasting GOP rival Rick Santorum as "the ultimate Washington insider." The 30-second spot began running statewide last Tuesday and will continue airing right up to Election Day on March 6. The ad marks the first spending in Tennessee by so-called "super PACs," the new breed of political action committees that...

Washington (CNN) Casino mogul and major Republican donor Sheldon Adelson made an expected new contribution this week to the super PAC supporting Newt Gingrich, Winning Our Future, CNN has learned. One source familiar with Adelson's donation described it as "sizeable." Two sources said the Nevada businessman made the contribution recently.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Faux news host Stephen Colbert isn't the only comedian with a super PAC connection. Political satirist Bill Maher got into the act Thursday night, pledging $1 million to a political committee supporting President Barack Obama.

Restore Our Future, the super PAC supporting Mitt Romney’s presidential candidacy, raised $7 million in January, topping off its deep reservoir of funds and allowing the group to flood media markets from Sioux City to Sarasota with some $14 million in advertising. Its FEC disclosure on Monday revealed that its extensive effort to elevate Romney and bury the competition relied on a set of donors that runs the gamut from famous heirs and CEOs to the most opaque and controversial kind of corporate interests. Unlike its competitors, Restore Our Future doesn’t have a lone high-profile benefactor, like Newt Gingrich has...

It’s not unusual for candidates to use leftover cash from aborted campaigns to form political action committees. But traditionally politicians have opted for so-called leadership PACs that allow them pay for political staff, travel the country and dole out contributions to favored candidates – all of which helps them keep themselves in the political spotlight and curry favor for potential future runs. Super PACs, which were spawned by a 2010 federal court ruling, could be used to maintain a political staff and fund a politician’s travel, but not to make donations to candidates. On the other hand – unlike leadership...

Atlantic Wire is reporting that the entity known as Occupy Wall Street is forming a Super PAC to accept unlimited donations and run political advocacy ads. The image above is the actual Federal Election Commission filing for Occupy Wall Street Political Action Committee (sans mask). "We're utterly serious," OWS Treasurer John Paul Thornton told Atlantic. Kudos to Atlantic reporter John Hudson for presumably asking the question, "are you guys serious?" The filing originates from Decatur, Alabama, where, according to the OWS offshoot’s Facebook page, this organization intends to raise money for progressive political candidates including Massachusetts Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren...

Via BuzzFeed. As expected, they’re going hard after his fiscal heresies. I’m giving you Santorum’s new ad here too, which is noteworthy first because he touts his tea-party cred (ironic) and second because he’s now making electability a core component of his pitch. No other Not Romney has been in that position before — but the numbers do back him up, for now: One thing that has remained constant in the ever changing GOP Presidential race is that Mitt Romney is the strongest candidate against Barack Obama…at least until now. PPP’s newest national poll finds Romney trailing Obama by 7...

As President Barack Obama tries to jump-start his SuperPAC, a close look at the numbers shows he needs more than a few rich men and women. He needs to create a nationwide base of rich supporters. A Register analysis of donations to the pro-Obama SuperPAC, Priorities USA Action, shows that 56 percent of its money, $2.3 million out of $4.17 million, came from California. An additional 25 percent came from Washington, DC, and 12 percent came from the president’s home base of Illinois. That’s 94 percent of the SuperPAC’s money from just two states and DC.

The White House didn't blow a dog whistle for deep-pocketed liberal donors on Monday. No, the administration whipped out a supersized vuvuzela. Blaring message: Let loose the campaign finance-bundling hounds of super PAC war! President Obama's campaign manager, Jim Messina, who served as White House deputy chief of staff for operations before assuming 2012 re-election duties, announced the super PAC super-flip-flop in a mass e-mail to supporters and a blog post published on the left-wing Huffington Post website. In a related conference call to major campaign finance bundlers, Messina encouraged these high-dollar donors to start funding Priorities USA Action. That's...

Two years ago President Barack Obama railed against a certain type of political action committee known as super PAC's as a "threat to our democracy". Today his reelection campaign confirmed that both administration and campaign officials will fundraise for Priorities USA Action, a super PAC backing the president. In October of 2010, shortly before the shellacking his fellow Democrats took in the mid-term elections, Mr. Obama spoke at a rally in Philadelphia. He attacked these groups which the Supreme Court ruled could raise unlimited sums from corporations, unions and other groups, as well as individuals. He implied they all had...

I’ll post the Nevada results later. Romney won big there in 2008 (51.1%) because of the heavy Mormon turnout at the caucuses and is expected to do so again. The big story was the revelation in The NY Times that the Romney campaign, both directly and through Jewish emissaries, has been trying to convince Sheldon Adelson to cut off further funding of a pro-Newt SuperPAC:

I heard this data read on Mark Levin yesterday afternoon, and picked it up from the CNN PoliticalTicker blog by way of Lucianne.I'll provide the nothing shy of jaw-dropping stats below... how you choose to absorb this ugly reality about election campaigns and negative advertising is, of course, completely up to you. Me? To use the "he who dies with the most toys..." old saying, paraphrased, obviously he who has the most money for a campaign, combined with the least scruples, wins. Statistics provided by the Campaign Media Analysis Group (CMAG). "I spent much of my academic career telling reporters,...

The list of contributors for Romney's PAC, RESTORE OUR FUTURE, INC., is shown in the referenced link. The total, as of this posting, is $17,947,952.77.

A political action committee which believes Barack Obama is not legally qualified for U.S. president plans a live broadcast of tomorrow’s hotly anticipated court hearing in Atlanta regarding Obama’s eligibility. The Article II Super PAC says it will provide uncensored, gavel-to-gavel video coverage of the event beginning at 9 a.m. Eastern at this online address. Based in Simi Valley, Calif., the PAC says it decided to act out of a sense of frustration, since most national news outlets have been ignoring the constitutional mandate that presidents be a “natural-born citizen,” which the PAC maintains is a person who is a...

New Ad by Gingrich Super-Pac

With contributions coming in, allies of Newt Gingrich have just purchased $6 million in advertising in Florida, to further build up the former House Speaker after his victory in South Carolina. The first ad labels Romney as "the inventor of government run health care" suggesting he is allied with President Obama. The ad is paid for by "Winning Our Future," a "super PAC" aligned with Gingrich. The organization has received $10 million in donations from one couple, Sheldon and Miriam Adelson, who have backed Gingrich since they met him in 1995 when legislation important to Israel passed the House.

I normally don't post vanities, but I thought those outside FL would like to know what I am seeing here. I live near the Tampa area in FL, the Golden "I-4" corridor so to speak, which every candidate must win if they are to win any election. These mailings fill me with dread. How much money does this man have? And what is my mailbox going to look like by November? I'm probably going to have a couple of trees in there!

Four years ago, candidate Barack Obama reshaped the presidential campaign by raising more money from donors who gave less than $200 than any candidate in history. But analysts say the 2012 campaign will be dominated by wealthy corporations, unions and individuals who can anonymously spend as much as they want in favor of a candidate - thanks to how the Supreme Court decided the Citizens United case two years ago today. The decision gave birth to a new type of political action committee, the super PAC. As thousands of Occupy Wall Street demonstrators in San Francisco and elsewhere protested the...

One of the biggest headlines of the Republican primary race so far – and the point Stephen Colbert is trying to make with his satirical campaign – is the story of SuperPACs. ....................................................... On the campaign trail, we asked McCain about the ads from the SuperPAC that supports Romney. He told us these SuperPACs will “destroy the political process,” and predicted “scandal” because of them.

Newt Gingrich has called on the Super-PAC funding a series of ads critical of Mitt Romney's job creation record at Bain Capital to fix inaccuracies in the ads or remove them from the air. “I am calling for the Winning Our Future Super-PAC supporting me to either edit its “King of Bain” advertisement and movie to remove its inaccuracies, or to pull it off the air and off the internet entirely," Gingrich said in a statement released Friday. “Furthermore, I am once again calling on Governor Romney to issue a similar call for the Super-PAC supporting him to edit or...

Nearly all negative spending by super PACs in the presidential campaign over the past week has gone toward opposing Newt Gingrich, the former House speaker who trailed badly in polls leading up to today’s New Hampshire primary, according to a WSJ analysis of expenditures reported to the Federal Election Commission. In total, anti-Gingrich super PAC Restore Our Future disclosed $89,962 in expenditures opposing Mr. Gingrich’s candidacy since the Jan. 3 caucuses in Iowa, where he came in fourth. That’s 96% of all negative spending in the past week by super PACs, the newest and most controversial form of political action...