Free Republic

Complete Title: The Soros Summit - Free Beacon exclusive: Inside the secret Miami meeting of George Soros’s liberal conspiracy ### A secretive network of left-wing billionaires and their political operatives descended on the luxurious Biltmore Hotel in Miami over the weekend to discuss strategy for the coming elections. The location of the conference had been kept a closely guarded secret by the members and guests of Democracy Alliance (DA), a collection of ultra-wealthy liberal donors formed in 2005, and is reported here in a Washington Free Beacon exclusive. Attendees roamed the grounds at the 150-acre tropical resort on their way...

Heading the journalistic adage to "follow the money," the Washington Post has found that every one out of six of President Obama's top fundraising "bundlers" who have hauled in $500,000 or more publicly identify themselves as gay. The implications are clear: as Obama's campaign continued to struggle to haul in large donations, his team needed to fire up his fundraising base by announcing this week's "evolution" on gay marriage. Indeed, as the Washington Post notes, "some liberal gay donors had threatened to withhold contributions over Obama’s stance on gay marriage as well as his administration’s decision to shelve an executive...

MEN OF HONOR Apparently, if you want to cheat on your wife or spurn the mother of your unborn child, cover up and easily settle your institution's criminal efforts to help Americans avoid paying their federal income taxes, or just avoid paying your own fair share, the place to be is on President Barack Obama's economic-recovery advisory board. Because that's where Robert Wolf, chief executive of UBS Group Americas, the U.S. arm of one of Switzerland's largest banks, UBS AG, sits, as do Charles E. Phillips, President of Oracle Corporation, Peter Orszag, the director of the Office of Management of...

Who Is Funding Barack Obama? by Paul Hollrah In a July 10 installment of “The World According to Barack,” we discussed Obama’s phenomenal fundraising juggernaut. Obama boasts of having built a contributor base of 1.5 million people, each contributing $5, $10, $20...or, as Obama assures us, “whatever they could afford.” Please do the math with me. The Obama campaign has disclosed that one-fourth, or $66.25 million of the $265 million reported as of May 31, 2008 (he has raised an additional $70 million during the month of June), came from those contributing $2,000, or more...which means that the remainder, or...

One of President Obama’s largest financial backers is a key executive at the largest Swiss bank in the world, complicating his criticism of presumptive Republican nominee Mitt Romney. Robert Wolf is president of Swiss financial giant UBS Investment Bank and chairman of UBS Americas. He has been one of Obama’s most prolific fundraisers dating back to 2006, when the former Senator from Illinois initiated his run for the White House. Wolf has bundled more than $500,000 for the president’s reelection, campaign records show. He is but one of many wealthy bankers Obama has turned to in an effort to win...

(Politico 44) — The staffer for DNC Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz who posted the controversial ‘Jewbag’ photo on her Facebook page in 2006 is no anonymous aide — but the daughter of Mark and Nancy Gilbert, two major Florida donors who have raised more than $500,000 for the Obama campaign. Danielle “Dani” Gilbert, according to party sources, was tapped by Wasserman Schultz to serve as a liaison to the Jewish community, even though party officials and people close to Obama told her that more senior Democrats were already handling those responsibilities. Wasserman Schultz has thus far refused to fire or...

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. ..

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama's re-election campaign identified its top fundraisers on Tuesday, including 61 people who each raised at least half a million dollars. Altogether, the more than 440 fundraisers collected at least $75 million to help Obama win a second term. Among them are embattled former New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine. Obama's campaign and the Democratic National Committee late last year returned $70,000 in contributions from Corzine and his wife following questions about the collapse of MF Global, the financial firm Corzine ran. Corzine is no longer raising money for the re-election, campaign officials said. The campaign...

The Center for Public Integrity released a new report on Obama’s 2012 bundlers yesterday: Dozens of Obama’s elite donors — many of them wealthy business figures — have been appointed to advisory panels and commissions that can play a role in setting government policy. Others have been invited to a range of exclusive White House briefings, holiday parties and splashy social events. And some have snagged lucrative government contracts that benefit their business interests or investment portfolios, a Center for Public Integrity investigation has found. Here’s the breakdown: At least 68 of 350 Obama bundlers for the 2012 election or...

File this one under culture of corruption. Obama supporters just can’t seem to stay out of trouble, can they? This latest scandal involves a former Tarheels basketball player and a $21 million bank fraud scheme. New York Daily News reports: Courtney Dupree was convicted of vastly overstating the billings of his Long Island City-based lighting company GDC Acquisitions in order to fraudulently obtain a loan from Amalgamated Bank.Dupree, 42, sat stone-faced as the verdict was read in Brooklyn Federal Court. He faces up to 30 years in prison and has to pay back at least $18 million. …Dupree, who attended...

What do you get when you mix Democratic fat-cat donations, Big Labor favors, pharmaceutical lobbying and Beltway business as usual? Answer: another toxic half-billion-dollar Barack Obama-approved crony deal. Move over, Solyndra. Here comes Siga-Gate. This latest Chicago-style payoff on your dime involves a dubious smallpox drug backed by a liberal billionaire investor, along with a former union boss who was one of the White House's most frequent visitors. They're the "1 percent" with 100 percent immunity from the selectively outraged Occupier mobs that purport to oppose partisan government bailouts and handouts to privileged corporations. Ronald Perelman is the New York...

The last time I checked, didn’t the Left call this sort of thing ‘crony capitalism?’ Over the last year, the Obama administration has aggressively pushed a $433-million plan to buy an experimental smallpox drug, despite uncertainty over whether it is needed or will work. Senior officials have taken unusual steps to secure the contract for New York-based Siga Technologies Inc., whose controlling shareholder is billionaire Ronald O. Perelman, one of the world’s richest men and a longtime Democratic Party donor. As you probably know, smallpox was eradicated in the wild decades ago: mostly because it was a genuinely terrifying threat...

The FBI rounded up a network of deep-cover Russian spies last year after the group came close to placing an agent near a Cabinet official in the Obama administration, a senior FBI counterspy said Monday as the bureau released once-secret documents on the case. ...U.S. officials said it was Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. Mr. Figliuzzi said in an interview that the FBI decided to end its more than 10-year-long counterspy investigation of the network because of concerns that the spies were “getting very close to their objective.” “These 10 Russian officers were sent to the U.S. on a...

Oklahoma billionaire George Kaiser has been in the headlines in recent months thanks to his role as a major investor in Solyndra LLC, the now-bankrupt California solar panel maker hailed by President Obama as a model for America's "clean energy future." Congress is investigating why the Obama administration gave Solyndra a $535 million loan guarantee despite multiple warnings from career bureaucrats and private sector investment experts that the company was a poor risk, lacked a realistic business model and was likely to go bankrupt as a result. Because Kaiser was a campaign "bundler" - an individual who collects contributions to...

Obama Fundraiser Llnked To Loan Program That Aided Solyndra The revelation is likely to spur new inquiries about the solar company's political influence. Separately, California lawmakers seek investigation of a state tax break the firm received. By Matea Gold and Stuart Pfeifer September 17, 2011 The White House faced mounting political complications as a second top fundraiser for President Obama was linked to a federal loan guarantee program that backed a now-bankrupt Silicon Valley solar energy company, and as two California lawmakers called for investigations of a state tax break granted to the firm. Steve Spinner, who helped monitor the...

In this May 26, 2010 file photo, President Barack Obama, with Solyndra Chief Executive Officer Chris Gronet, looks at a solar panel, during a tour of Solyndra, Inc., a solar panel manufacturing facility, in Fremont, Calif. Solyndra received a $535 million loan from the U.S. government has announced layoffs of 1,100 workers and plans to file for bankruptcy. (WaPo) Top Obama bundler George Kaiser made multiple visits to the White House in the months before the company was granted a $535 million loan from the government. iWatch News reported, via Free Republic: The i Watch News investigation confirmed that at...

Solyndra - The Obama connection I wrote about the solar panel manufacturer Solyndra last week; "Government Investment Disaster in the Works" I highlighted all of the negatives that the company was facing. It was pretty clear to me that that company was facing trouble. But I had no idea that they would file Chapter 11 the very next day. (Sometimes you just get lucky) I also made note of some scuttlebutt that George Kaiser (Oklahoma oil billionaire) was involved with Solyndra. I have been looking for a confirmation of this. Kaiser is an important link in this story. He is...

Solyndra, the solar-cell company whose collapse last week triggered a national debate over green jobs, filed its bankruptcy papers Monday, listing $859 million in assets and $784 million in secured loans. The company's biggest lender was the federal government, which loaned Solyndra $528 million in 2009 to build a new factory near its Fremont headquarters. As part of an effort to boost renewable power companies, the government offered Solyndra as much as $535 million for the project, but the factory cost slightly less to build than expected. The government will not, however, be the first creditor in line during Solyndra's...

The Obama administration bypassed procedural steps meant to protect taxpayers as it hurried to approve an energy loan guarantee to a politically-connected California solar power startup, ABC News and the Center for Public Integrity's iWatch News have learned …The Energy Department in March 2009 announced its intention to award Solyndra Inc. a $535 million loan guarantee before receiving final copies of outside reviews typically used to vet such deals. ...The loan guarantee, the administration's first for a clean energy project, benefited a company whose prime financial backers include Oklahoma oil billionaire George Kaiser, a "bundler" of campaign donations. Kaiser raised...

Despite the recent public lashing President Obama gave millionaires and billionaires, in private, Team Obama is once again diving into the pockets of the super rich to fund its campaign. With the 2012 campaign barely under way, Obama has already raised some $35 million from the biggest donors -- so-called 'bundlers' who collect money by the truckload from the wealthy elite. "A bundler is someone who collects checks from other people," said Susan Estrich, a former Democratic campaign manager. "They may be people who work for him, who hired him as a consultant or in many cases, want to do...

The campaign fundraising efforts of President Obama raised $86 million in the past three months from 500,000 people — but at least $35 million of it can be traced to just 244 well-connected supporters who collected contributions from wealthy friends. Just 634 donations from people giving $30,000 or more to the Obama Victory Fund comprise $23 million, while the 1,335 donations the fund received from those giving $250 add up to about $336,000, a Washington Times analysis shows. The campaign has branded itself as a new type of political operation and touted its reliance on a grass-roots network of everyday...

The campaign fundraising efforts of President Obama raised $86 million in the past three months from 500,000 people — but at least $35 million of it can be traced to just 244 well-connected supporters who collected contributions from wealthy friends. Just 634 donations from people giving $30,000 or more to the Obama Victory Fund comprise $23 million, while the 1,335 donations the fund received from those giving $250 add up to about $336,000, a Washington Times analysis shows. The campaign has branded itself as a new type of political operation and touted its reliance on a grassroots network

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama's campaign team has signed up an early wave of elite fundraisers who have collected at least $34.95 million combined since April, helping bankroll the president's re-election bid. The Obama campaign on Friday voluntarily disclosed its list of 244 individuals and couples who serve as "bundlers," often wealthy, well-connected donors who raise campaign cash from friends and business associates. The campaign has emphasized its more than 550,000 donors and note that Obama does not take money from political action committees or Washington lobbyists. But the list underscores the role of high-dollar bundlers who helped Obama...

Telecom executive Donald H. Gips raised a big bundle of cash to help finance his friend Barack Obama’s run for the presidency. Gips, a vice president of Colorado-based Level 3 Communications LLC, delivered more than $500,000 in contributions for the Obama war chest, while two fellow senior company executives collected at least $150,000 more. After the election, Gips was put in charge of hiring in the Obama White House, helping to place loyalists and fundraisers in many key positions. Then in mid-2009, the new president named him ambassador to South Africa. Level 3 Communications, in which Gips retained stock, meanwhile...

Former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty remains little-known beyond his home state, but he has begun to line up wealthy donors, a critical constituency. Even as he draws low single-digit support in early polls, Mr. Pawlenty has amassed a substantial roster of well-connected GOP donors and fund-raisers in his quest for the Republican presidential nomination. Their preference for Mr. Pawlenty could pose a challenge to his GOP rival, Mitt Romney, the former Massachusetts governor who has used experience as a 2008 candidate and background as a private-equity investor to build what is widely regarded as the largest network of high-impact fund-raisers...

Paul Ryan wants to end ALL corporate welfare, and Obama's so-called proposal to reform the tax code will not end corporate welfare. It is a diversion to distract people from pointing out all the corporate welfare that he supports. Secondly, those corporations which receive corporate welfare (from the government through tax dollars) which Obama likes to euphemistically label "investments," may then have freed-up money to offset any tax increases to the heads of those corporations - through the shelling out of bonuses. As John Stossel and several other Libertarians (as well as conservatives and progressives) have reported, more money is...

When the White House announced the federal government would loan $465 million to Tesla, a California start-up company with plans to develop an all-electric sedan, President Obama called it an "historic opportunity to ensure that the next generation of fuel-efficient cars and trucks are made in America." The loan also represented a lucrative opportunity for Steve Westly, a major investor in the car company who had raised more than $500,000 for the president's campaign. In 2009, the U.S. Department of Energy lent more than half a billion dollars to companies backed by Westly's California venture capital firm. In 2010, the...

No phony businesses or great train escapes in this one, alas, but on the upside it’s much easier to follow the money. One HillRaiser suspected of laundering contributions through frontmen is a fluke; two is a pattern. When Hillary Rodham Clinton held an intimate fund-raising event at her Washington home in late March, Pamela Layton donated $4,600, the maximum allowed by law, to Mrs. Clinton’s presidential campaign. But the 37-year-old Ms. Layton says she and her husband were reimbursed by her husband’s boss for the donations. “It wasn’t personal money. It was all corporate money,” Mrs. Layton said outside her...

Clinton Campaign Vows To Check Contributions Solicited by Supporter BRISTOW, Va. -- When Hillary Rodham Clinton held an intimate fund-raising event at her Washington home in late March, Pamela Layton donated $4,600, the maximum allowed by law, to Mrs. Clinton's presidential campaign. But the 37-year-old Ms. Layton says she and her husband were reimbursed by her husband's boss for the donations. "It wasn't personal money. It was all corporate money," Mrs. Layton said outside her home here. "I don't even like Hillary. I'm a Republican." The boss is William Danielczyk, founder of a Washington-area private-equity firm and a major fund-raising...

A federal grand jury indicted two Virginia men on Wednesday for allegedly trying to illegally reimburse donors who gave to Hillary Clinton’s senate and presidential campaigns. The Department of Justice (DOJ) has accused the two men, William Danielczyk and Eugene Biagi, of paying back $186,600 in contributions to the senate and presidential campaign committees of a candidate for federal office, and obstructing the Federal Election Commission (FEC) and the FBI.

Took less than a month for former Huffington Post CEO Betsy Morgan and Managing Editor Scott Baker to go huffing and puffing all over The Blaze. The Blaze, now cutting a break for Code Pink in Cairo, should check in with writers Andrea Shea King and Kristinn Taylor who got it right (no pun intended). Is it HuffPo at the helm that is portraying Code Pink rabble rousers as Obama enemies? Note to Glenn Beck: Code Pink is not Global Citizen Barry Soetoro’s enemy. They are right up his wazoo. Big time.

12, 2008 EXCLUSIVE: Who is Mohammed Al-Churbaji?:; Islamic Terrorist "Mr. Mom" Mohammed Al-Churbaji, Dad of Obama Fundraiser Worked for Azzam, Bin Laden * How hard it is to get rid of known terrorists in our midst and how easy it is for a deported Al-Qaeda terrorist to return to America; * How corrupt U.S. embassy officials get away with re-admitting terrorists into the U.S.; * How easily terrorists and their families gain acceptance by our society, including the Barack Obama Presidential campaign; * How America's universities are not tools of moderation for Muslim foreigners, but breeding grounds for terrorist fraternization...

Let’s all go!

Amy Goodman of the Marxist Democracy Now! network reported yesterday on the arrest of a “leading Democratic donor” named Hassan Nemazee. Here is the story, in its entirety: Back in the United States, a leading Democratic donor has been arrested and charged with seeking to defraud the financial giant Citibank. Hassan Nemazee is accused of submitting forged documents to secure a $74 million loan. Nemazee has given at least $150,000 to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee since 2006 and supported several other leading Democratic politicians. Not much to sink your teeth into there. Could it be that Goodman is downplaying...

Like Capt. Renault in "Casablanca," I am shocked, shocked to discover that access peddling is going on in the Obama White House. Perks for deep-pocketed donors? Presidential meetings for sale? The stale Chicago odor of pay-for-play wafting from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue? Knock me over with a feather. Despite the president's claimed distaste for the campaign finance practice known as "bundling" (rounding up aggregate contributions from friends, business associates and employees), the House of Obama has been a campaign finance bundlers' paradise from Day One. A new report by Matthew Mosk of The Washington Times just confirms the gob-smackingly obvious: It's...

Many of the fake documents used by a leading Democratic Party fund-raiser to defraud HSBC and Citigroup Inc were made by his brother-in-law, U.S. prosecutors said on Friday. Authorities arrested and charged Shahin Kashanchi, brother-in-law of indicted fund-raiser Hassan Nemazee, who donated to the presidential campaigns of Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and other leading Democrats over the years. Nemazee pleaded not guilty on Wednesday in Manhattan federal court to defrauding a total of three banks -- Bank of America was the other -- out of $292 million in loan proceeds. "Based on e-mail traffic between Kashanchi and Nemazee, Kashanchi was...

A wealthy investment banker and prominent fundraiser for President Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and other top Democrats was arrested Tuesday on charges he lied to get a $74 million business loan that -- once confronted by authorities -- he hastily repaid. Prosecutors accused Hassan Nemazee of giving Citibank documents showing he owned millions of dollars in collateral. They said the documents were "fraudulent and forged." A Clinton spokesman didn't immediately return an e-mail message seeking comment. The chairman and chief executive of Manhattan-based Nemazee Capital Corp. served as national finance chairman for Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign in 2008, and later...

Ambassadors: Do patronage picks matter? Obama continues tradition — so far, more than half are political nominees By Domenico Montanaro Political Researcher NBC News WASHINGTON - American presidents rewarding top campaign fundraisers with plum ambassadorships has long been common practice for both Democrats and Republicans alike. But President Obama, who has vowed to “change the ways of Washington,” has not only continued this tradition of his predecessors, he has outpaced them. So far, 57% of Obama’s picks for ambassador positions — 34 of 60 — have been political appointees, or people not considered career Foreign Service, according to the American...

The candidate that claims to be the only presidential contender who doesn't take money from lobbyists is in fact the biggest recipient of lobby-related contributions. Barack Obama rakes in millions from law firms serving the interests of Wall Street, including the financial institutions that gave us the subprime lending crisis. Lawyers that work for firms that earn hundreds of millions of dollars for lobbying may technically not be lobbyists, but they share in their colleagues' earnings as influencers of Congress - a legal loophole that allows Obama to claim his hands are clean of lobby loot. The top contributors to...

The Edwards '08 Campaign for President has quietly refunded almost $4 million to individual contributors, a number of them, bundlers and big backers. This should be news to Warren Buffet who recently mused that Edwards' supporters should get together and file a class action suit. It seems another "class" has already had their contributions refunded--and it's not the "grassroots" little guys. We had no idea the campaign was handing out refunds until we happened to come across the information while perusing the site OpenSecrets.org and the data supplied to the Federal Election Commission by the Edwards' campaign. We were baffled,...

* The John Edwards' campaign has already refunded $3,831,398 to contributors--many who contributed the maximum of $2300. * 2,247 donors have already received money back from the John Edwards--many who are trial attorneys and political "bundlers"--and most received it back on March 24. * Refunds to small donors under $100 have accounted for only 1/5th of one percent, so far, according to Open Secrets.com. * The Edwards campaign still has $4,791,200 cash on hand, according to its July 31, 2008 filing. For any readers who gave money to the John Edwards' campaign and are now upset that perhaps that...

In an effort to cast himself as independent of the influence of money on politics, Senator Barack Obama often highlights the campaign contributions of $200 or less that have amounted to fully half of the $340 million he has collected so far. But records show that a third of his record-breaking haul has come from donations of $1,000 or more - a total of $112 million, more than the total of contributions in that category taken in by either Senator John McCain, his Republican rival, or Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, his opponent in the Democratic primaries. Behind those large donations...

Recently, prodded by a letter from campaign finance reform groups, and after the New York Times pointed out that the Obama campaign had not updated its bundler list for months, the Web site added a flotilla of names, along with each bundler's city and state. However, the Web site does not provide the bundlers' occupations or employers, although those should be readily available to the campaign from the bundlers' individual contributions.

WASHINGTON (June 25, 2008) – Obama’s decision to use only private donations for his campaign mandates that he be more transparent about his fundraising, the groups wrote. McCain’s continued reliance on private money until his party’s nominating convention also underscores the need for greater disclosure. The eight groups urge the candidates to disclose more complete information about donors to set a high standard of campaign funding transparency for future presidential candidates. Specifically, the groups ask the candidates to divulge on their campaign websites the exact amounts that bundlers raise for their official campaign committees and joint fundraising committees that benefit...

Number of bundlers for 2008 presidential candidates: 2,382 Number of lobbyist bundlers for 2008 presidential candidates: 143 Amount raised by 2008 presidential candidates: $317,070,981 Barack Obama (D) Total Raised: $78,915,507 ************ Bundlers: 359 Lobbyist Bundlers: 10 Hillary Clinton (D) Total Raised: $78,507,181 ************ Bundlers: 322 Lobbyist Bundlers: 20 Rudy Giuliani (R) Total Raised: $44,559,299 ************ Bundlers: 225 Lobbyist Bundlers: 35 Mitt Romney (R) Total Raised: $43,999,833 ************ Bundlers: 345 Lobbyist Bundlers: 16 John McCain (R) Total Raised: $30,306,621 ************ Bundlers: 463 Lobbyist Bundlers: 58 John Edwards (D) Total Raised: $29,935,179 ************ Bundlers: 665 Lobbyist Bundlers: 3 Ron Paul (R) Total...

Iraq continues to bubble, with the Iraqi government on Sunday declaring Blackwater USA very much in the wrong in last month’s big shooting incident in Baghdad — which is a problem for both George W. Bush and Hillary Clinton — and the presidential campaign spotlight this week is on Fred Thompson, who takes part in his first debate on Tuesday night in Dearborn, Michigan. After many months of almost diving into the race, while paddling around the shallow end of the pool, the former Tennessee senator and Law & Order star, seen by many on the right as a savior...