Free Republic

After the United States Supreme Court officially overturned Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey on Friday, California Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis appeared on MSNBC to discuss the ruling. She touted California's plans to become an abortion sanctuary for out-of-state travelers seeking abortions, and also took aim at Justice Clarence Thomas, comparing him to an individual from a country with restrictive laws governing women's behavior. "Sadly I think that this decision is delegitimizing the Supreme Court," she said. "Who is Clarence Thomas? Is he my Saudi Arabian father who's going to tell me what I can and cannot do...

A wealthy Democratic donor is fanning the flames of speculation that Hillary Clinton is indeed running for president. Sacramento developer Angelo Tsakopoulos says Bill Clinton has confirmed the presumed plan that the former Secretary of State will make a bid for the White House again. The millionaire told the Greek Reporter that Clinton's husband revealed his wife's political ambition, as the power couple gear up for a 2016 race. 'Hillary will be our next President and she will be a great one,' Mr Tsakopoulos told the Greek Reporter at a private gala event in California over the weekend. 'I talk...

Sacramento real estate developer Eleni Tsakopoulos-Kounalakis and her husband have contributed $438,880 to federal candidates, committees and leadership PACs since 1989, with 95 percent of the money going to Democratic candidates and committees, according to a new report by the Center for Responsive Politics (CRP) Last Friday, President Barack Obama announced that Tsakopoulos-Kounalakis is his choice to become the new ambassador to Hungary. She is married to Markos Kounalakis, who is the president of Washington Monthly.

Sacramento developer Angelo K. Tsakopoulos has contributed $2.5 million to the California Democratic Party to help fund its "issue advocacy" ads trying to link Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger with the policies of President Bush. The contributions from Tsakopoulos and his company, AKT Development, came on top of the $8.7 million that he and his relatives and their firms gave to an independent expenditure committee in the spring. The committee ran TV ads on behalf of Treasurer Phil Angelides, who won the Democratic primary over Controller Steve Westly. Tsakopoulos is the mentor and one-time business partner of Angelides, who is a former...

State Treasurer Phil Angelides, Democratic candidate for governor, sees progress along a swampy wetlands corridor his company built in a Folsom housing development nearly two decades ago. Before he arrived, he said, cattle trampled the earth beneath Lexington Hills. "I don't know if you know what cattle does to land ... ," he said. "They stomp it, they eat everything, they eat all the vegetation." Federal officials, however, thought Angelides did his own damage to the property. In 1987, they found he filled in wetlands and rare vernal pool habitat in violation of the federal Clean Water Act, records show....

State Senate leader Don Perata has incurred legal costs averaging $116,000 per month to defend against an FBI inquiry into whether he received outside income for legislative work, according to records released Monday. The Oakland Democrat remained $260,000 in debt as of June 30 despite raising $322,000 from longtime campaign contributors since establishing his defense fund in February, according to campaign finance reports filed with the secretary of state's office. One of the Senate president pro tem's two largest donors was Sacramento developer Angelo Tsakopoulos, who gave $50,000 to the legal fund in June. Tsakopoulos was outside the United States...

Doris Matsui had seen her stock investments plummet two years ago to a point where she decided she wanted to shift some of her money elsewhere. Matsui, who is running in a March 8 special election to replace her late husband in Congress, figured real estate was a better way to go. Matsui recalled Friday that she said as much back then to major Sacramento developer Angelo Tsakopoulos, whom she has considered a friend for three decades. "Everybody when they get together at parties talks about their real estate, about how much more your house is worth than it was...