Free Republic

OCTOBER 17, 2009 Rajaratnam Surfaced in U.S. Terrorism Probe By EVAN PEREZ and MATTHEW ROSENBERG WASHINGTON—The hedge-fund billionaire charged as part of a vast insider-trading case surfaced in an earlier, separate probe into U.S. fundraising by a Sri Lankan terrorist group, people familiar with the probe said. As part of that investigation, federal agents said they uncovered documents showing that Raj Rajaratnam, founder of the Galleon Group, was among several wealthy Sri Lankans in the U.S. whose donations to a Maryland-based charity made their way to the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, according to people familiar with the probe. Raj...

Al-Qaeda terrorist's son an Obama fundraiser Here's another 'associate' that Democratic Presidential candidate Barack Hussein Obama may want to throw under the bus. This is a Debbie Schlussel exclusive. Al Churbaji is a Syrian national currently living in Ann Arbor, Michigan, from where he is fighting the Department of Homeland Security's endeavors to deport him. If successful, this will be the second deportation for Al-Churbaji, after a return to the U.S. that violated federal immigration and deportation policies. More on that later. But even if Al-Churbaji is deported, at least two of his six children, a son and a daughter,...

SolarCity (SCTY), another “green energy” company and recipient of millions of dollars of taxpayer funds, in under investigation by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), sources reveal. The company, which recently filed for its initial IPO, has disclosed that it received subpoenas in July from the U.S. Treasury Department. The Treasury Department is investigating whether companies overstated the market value of solar panel arrays they installed when claiming the 30% federal cash grant. The IRS also notified SolarCity that it is auditing two of its investment funds and reviewing the claimed value of solar systems submitted to receive the federal cash...

And the probe doesn’t involve some bit players in an obscure program, either.  The 1603 Program was one of the centerpieces of Barack Obama’s 2009 stimulus, designed to subsidize a transition from hydrocarbon-based energy to renewables in the residential market, and federal government sunk $13 billion into the effort.  Now the Inspector General of Treasury has opened a probe of the three largest providers of solar panel installations, who gained the most from the 1603 Program, and who may have fraudulently calculated their bills in order to claim more taxpayer cash: Three of the country’s most prolific installers of...

Tuesday, November 13, 2012 GoLocalProv News Team A prominent Rhode Island lobbyist and Democratic fundraiser gave a $300,000 personal loan to the twin sister of Jill Kelley, the woman tied to the love affair that ended CIA Director David Petraeus’ career, court documents show. Bankruptcy records filed by Natalie Khawam last April list Gerald Harrington, the founder of the Capitol City Group, as an unsecured creditor on the loan. Khawam owes nearly $4 million in total. The loan was first reported by the New York Post. A message left at Harrington’s Providence law firm was not immediately returned. The Post...

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...

President Obama reelection campaign, rattled by his Wednesday night debate performance, could be in for even worse news. According to knowlegable sources, a national magazine and a national web site are preparing a blockbuster donor scandal story. Sources told Secrets that the Obama campaign has been trying to block the story. But a key source said it plans to publish the story Friday or, more likely, Monday.

How 'bout a little refresher re. Obama political Godfather  and actual (16-count!) convicted felon Tony Rezko...? The Syrian-born Rezko is an infamous Chicago slumlord, fast-food restauranteur, and sleazy political operator who played a key role in the Blagojevich case- as well as the unlikley ascension to power of Barrack Hussein Obama.Obama's longtime ally, friend, and top fundraiser was found guilty of 16/24 counts of felony influence peddling back in June 2008. Of course the story was mostly buried/detached from his bud Barry in the run-up to that year's most unfortunate (for us) presidential election whilst the jury convicted Rezko of wire...

Space Shuttle Discovery sailed off into the sunset and the United States for the first time in a half century has no proven ability to put men into space. Thank President Obama. Or maybe, thank SpaceX founder Elon Musk. (See Rand Simberg’s very different take on things.) SpaceX is getting federal dollars that NASA would otherwise use. .......While NASA dollars have moved into the pockets of SpaceX, we now know that Elon Musk is an Obama bundler. Yesterday I had a conversation with a Congressman who revealed to me that Musk is a big Obama friend and bundler. Musk has...

*snip* Mrs. Pritzker has bundled at least $904,957 for Mr. Obama. A former board member of the Marmon Group, the Pritzker family owns as much as 40% of Marmon while Berkshire Hathaway owns the rest. Marmon and Berkshire own IMPulse, a transit-manufacturing firm, located in Mount Olive, North Carolina. IMPulse received or directed numerous construction projects that received millions in taxpayer-funded stimulus money. Among others, those projects include: A $485.8 million contract that was awarded for the extension of the Metro Gold Line from Pasadena to Azusa A San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA) infrastructure project worth $67 million in...

WASHINGTON // A Pakistani immigrant who hosted fundraisers for Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton is being sought by the FBI on allegations that he funneled illegal contributions to Clinton's political action committee and to Sen. Barbara Boxer's 2004 re-election campaign. Authorities say Northridge, Calif., businessman Abdul Rehman Jinnah, 56, fled the country shortly after being indicted on charges of engineering more than $50,000 in illegal donations to the Democratic committees. A business associate charged as Jinnah's co-conspirator has entered a guilty plea and is scheduled to be sentenced in Los Angeles next week. ...The case has transformed Jinnah from a political...

George Clooney headlined a fund-raiser Monday that took in more than a half-million dollars for President Barack Obama’s re-election campaign. Organizers said they took in at least $625,000 from U.S. donors for Obama’s campaign, including many who flew in to Geneva, Switzerland, from around the world for the one-night event.

Emigrant Bank was recently identified to receive a waiver that would allow the bank to opt out of rigorous Dodd-Frank requirements. These of course are the same new rules and regulations that Barack deems essential to the nation. Yet when the bank’s owner, Howard Milstein, who is a close friend and was a bundler for President Barack Obama’s 2008 campaign, protested that the new rules would seriously crimp operations of his bank, the Obama Administration worked with members of congress to grant him a waiver from the new rules. Other financial institutions and banks have consistently and vehemently argued that...

Interesting stuff!!! Interview done by Stephen K. Bannon.

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...