Not even close. No where does FR claim to be a shill for the Republican Party -- it only claims to support conservative causes. Here is FR's goals as stated on the site:
Free Republic is the premier online gathering place for independent, grass-roots conservatism on the web. We're working to roll back decades of governmental largesse, to root out political fraud and corruption, and to champion causes which further conservatism in America. And we always have fun doing it. Hoo-yah!And by contrast here is the KOS statement:
This is a Democratic blog, a partisan blog. One that recognizes that Democrats run from left to right on the ideological spectrum, and yet we're all still in this fight together. We happily embrace centrists like NDN's Simon Rosenberg and Howard Dean, conservatives like Martin Frost and Brad Carson, and liberals like John Kerry and Barack Obama. Liberal? Yeah, we're around here and we're proud. But it's not a liberal blog. It's a Democratic blog with one goal in mind: electoral victory.See the difference?
At first I didn’t support the action of the FEC, but now I realize why DK is subject to it. We raise money here at FR to run the site and promote the site. DK is a CONDUIT directly to the DNC coffers. It’s like those union run sites that call themselves things like “Americans for Change” but are really donation sites to directly aid democrat candidates and to directly DAMAGE republican candidates. To the best of my knowledge Jim Robinson isn’t using this site as an RNC fundraiser.