Free Republic

Obama supporters hope his union endorsers will help bring in the white, blue-collar Democrats his campaign has been courting. The Service Employees International Union, the nation's largest, is already calling Obama "the presumptive nominee." But there is still a major union plum to be had, the AFL-CIO, the nation's largest labor organization. The AFL-CIO and its 56 unions expect to spend an estimated $200 million on the presidential and congressional elections. However, the labor federation is still nowhere close to making an endorsement, focusing its energies instead on presumptive Republican nominee John McCain. To win its formal backing, a candidate...

While Democrats absorbed the lessons of Pennsylvania this week, John McCain was coming to a few realizations of his own. For one, "big money" in politics isn't so bad after all. That's the takeaway from the presumptive GOP nominee's new fund-raising strategy, which his campaign has quietly rolled out these past few weeks. The McCain camp is teaming up with the Republican National Committee to tap into big, big donations from big, big donors – hoping to close the big, big money gap with Democrats. Their effort to do so will involve some creative abuse of the campaign finance restrictions...

Here comes Big George again. Billionaire George Soros is weighing in heavily with more cash, delivering $2.5 million to a new political organization called Fund for America. According to a year-end campaign report filed with the Internal Revenue Service and uncovered by The Times' Dan Morain, Fund for America was organized by Taco Bell heir Rob McKay, former Clinton White House Chief of Staff John Podesta and Anna Burger of the Service Employees International Union. The SEIU matched Soros with another $2.5 million, too. Other major donors include investor Donald Sussman, who has given $1 million and AKT Development of...

California authorities have sought businessman Norman Hsu for 15 years. Since 2004, he has carved out a place of honor raising cash for such candidates as Hillary Rodham Clinton. For the last 15 years, California authorities have been trying to figure out what happened to a businessman named Norman Hsu, who pleaded no contest to grand theft, agreed to serve up to three years in prison and then seemed to vanish. "He is a fugitive," Ronald Smetana, who handled the case for the state attorney general, said in an interview. "Do you know where he is?" Hsu, it seems, has...

(2007-07-03) — One of the chief architects of campaign finance reform legislation has shown that he can ‘walk the talk’ when it comes to reducing the corrupting influence of money on presidential candidates. Sen. John McCain, because he raised only $11.2 million in the second quarter, is “free to be his own man and to follow the dictates of his own conscience when he’s in the White House,” according to campaign manager Terry Nelson, who has decided to work without pay, and to cut about half the campaign’s staff, to reduce the corrupting influence of “political handlers” on Mr. McCain....

LeBron James is electing to have an enormous carbon footprint in the 35,440-square-foot home he is having built outside Akron, Ohio. No word yet whether James plans to buy environmental penance through the purchase of carbon offsets, the approach of Al Gore, the green movement's high priest who delivers his sermons from the don't-do-as-I-do, do-as-I-say pulpit. James is opting to indulge in his fantasies with his dream castle. It will come with a bowling alley, casino, theater, recording studio, barber shop, aquarium, sports bar, outdoor swimming pool and six-car garage. Why he left out a shopping mall is anyone's guess....

The biggest players in Tuesday's election weren't the Democratic or Republican parties or even the candidates themselves -- but rather some special-interest groups working under the cover of mercenary-like independent expenditure committees. The secretary of state's office still hasn't tallied all the spending, but so far it has identified hundreds of committees that registered in recent months with the goal of supporting or tearing down candidates and causes that went before voters Tuesday. Political operatives describe a surge in independent spending, fueled partly by the new $22,300 limit on individual contributions to candidates in statewide races. When it comes to...

The saga continues in the Bronx this week. The Sox send out Beckett, Wakefield and Schilling. The Yankees counter with Randy Johnson, Mike Mussina and Shawn Chacon. The New York Post ran a back cover story questioning why anyone has not dared to throw at David Ortiz.. (maybe because he is 6' 4" and weighs 250 lbs) Sox offseason pickup Josh Beckett returns to Yankee Stadium for the first time since Game 6 of the 2003 World Series. Series returns to NY after an abbreviated series last week in Boston where Boston fans expressed their true feelings about Johnny Damon.

SACRAMENTO - In what was supposed to be an off-year for statewide elections in California, the airwaves are teeming with warring political ads as groups on both sides of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's agenda spend millions to sway voters in the upcoming special election. ``Without big money, you don't get an issue on the ballot,'' said Robert Stern of the Los Angeles-based Center for Governmental Studies. And with more than a year to go until the 2006 primaries, individual candidates for office also are busy raising funds: -- The Republican governor is raising millions for a re-election bid he has yet...

Big-Money Contributors Line Up for Inauguration President Bush wants to lower barriers to building nuclear power plants, and the lobby that promotes nuclear energy could not be happier. To show its thanks, the group has given $100,000 to help pay for his inauguration. "He's a big supporter," said John E. Kane, chief lobbyist for the Nuclear Energy Institute. "Our donation is just a small way of supporting him." The nuclear energy industry's contribution is part of a record-breaking outpouring of corporate cash to next week's inaugural festivities. At least 88 companies and trade associations, along with 39 CEOs and top...

New York hotel offers 10,000-dollar martini Wed Dec 1,12:22 PM ET Offbeat - AFP NEW YORK (AFP) - New York's Algonquin Hotel, once the haunt of 1920s literarti like Dorothy Parker, is making a fresh bid for notoriety by offering a 10,000-dollar martini cocktail. The vodka, vermouth and olives are much the same as in any martini, but the twist lies in the "ice" -- in this case a diamond from the hotel's in-house jeweler, the Daily News reported Wednesday. So far, no guest has had the stomach or the chequebook required to order a "Martini on the Rock," but...

MIDI - IT MUST HAVE BEEN LOVE It is over...for dear Yasser...hourglass is...out of sand I've had fun in Paris...with all that money...he lived in that stinking land...stinking land As he lay...on his deathbed...I will act I found his account...time to pull the plug...I found his account...say goodbye to the slug I found his account...time to pull the plug...I found his account...I will not miss his mug I could not stand...goat smell breathing...it had gagged me...every time I'm a high-priced hooker...that's what they called me...and a partner in his crimes And as he lay...on his deathbed...I've got to act...

Kerry, Kerry, quite contrary, How do your coffers grow? With 527s and 501s, And ugly little Soros's dough. For the junior senator from Massachusetts, there's no escaping the fact that August was one long, hot month. (Hum. Maybe that's why he spent so much of it windsurfing.) And the rest of the season could shape up to be even more inclement for John F. Kerry. My clever jingle notwithstanding, the candidate has good reason to be contrary: No matter how rapidly his coffers have grown, his political fortunes are now shrinking at an alarming rate. If this downward trend continues,...

<p>It took a blitz of big money, bipartisan politics and Hollywood star power, but in the end Arnold Schwarzenegger's come-from-behind win on the state budget bailout has made him the biggest force California politics has seen in years.</p> <p>He got elected largely on the strength of his personality -- now, Arnold has shown that he can translate his personality into effective governing.</p>

<p>NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - Many viewers of this weekend's Super Bowl will tune in for the commercials as much as the game itself.</p> <p>Super Bowl XXVIII, for those of you counting, will mark the 20th anniversary of Apple Inc.'s seminal ad showing a woman breaking a PC screen, which showed what a Super Bowl ad can do for a brand.</p>

Top 10 donors: American Fedn of State, County & Municipal Employees $34,335,708 National Assn of Realtors $22,840,577 National Education Assn $22,754,066 Assn of Trial Lawyers of America $22,411,966 Intl Brotherhood of Electrical Workers $20,451,489 Philip Morris $20,106,715 Carpenters & Joiners Union $20,100,487 Teamsters Union $19,998,665 Laborers Union $19,877,259 American Medical Assn $19,862,043 Based on data released by the FEC on Monday, August 11, 2003.

Sort by Total View Percentages / Icons Rank Organization Name Total 1989-2004 Cycles 2002 Cycle Dems Repubs Dems Repubs 25 AFL-CIO $13,846,242 94% 5% 97% 2% 52 AFLAC Inc $9,280,997 35% 63% 43% 56% 54 Air Line Pilots Assn $9,235,547 82% 17% 83% 15% 87 American Academy of Ophthalmology $6,271,936 44% 52% 55% 44% 88 American Airlines $6,267,619 44% 55% 48% 51% 26 American Bankers Assn $12,992,274 34% 63% 41% 57% 99 American Council of Life Insurers $6,065,360 24% 75% 34% 65% 41 American Dental Assn $10,249,456 39% 59% 46% 53% 14 American Federation of Teachers $18,555,399 98% 0% 98%...

Some conniving devil put me on the DNC e-mail list. Here's this morning's as-usual-hysterical offering for compare, contrast, and comment purposes. Special Interest Outrage: Lobbyists Lining Up at White House Door for 2003 Agenda! With the midterm elections just two weeks away, the Bush administration and Republicans in Congress are working closely with big money special interest lobbyists to set their agenda for 2003. What's on the menu?More big tax cuts for corporations and the wealthiest Americans A fake Medicare prescription drug plan that doesn't help America's seniors Another attempt to cram Social Security privatization down the throats of Americans...

September 1, 2002 Skilled Ballplayers and Fans Who Are BratsBy IRA BERKOW MONG the homemade signs exhibited by fans at some of the ballparks recently in which the major-league players threatened to strike, the one in PNC Park in Pittsburgh, where the Pirates play, was particularly eye-catching: "Play 4 the Love of the Game." This is part of the fairy tale that some fans like to believe — that players ought to play simply for the love of the game. The fact is, they are professionals, and from the time professional baseball began, in 1869, with the Red Stockings...