Free Republic

“Wayne LaPierre Falsely Claims ‘All’ The NRA's Money Comes From Small Donors,” Chris Brown of Media Matters sneers in triumph. He’s focusing on an interview with Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre by Glenn Beck, where the association head was asked about how NRA could hope to match union political contributions. LaPierre’s response: We raise it all through 5, 10, 15, 20 dollar contributions that Americans are willing to preserve freedom. And they're willing to support it. But, you know, that's what NRA is about. I mean, I always say we're about our membership and we're about giving voice to our...

EXCLUSIVE: Internet sites on their SOPAStrike may be conducting a blackout but Hollywood studios are conducting a boycott. I’ve learned that Hollywood studio chiefs individually and as a group are drawing a line in the sand on the piracy issue with the Obama re-election campaign and refusing to give any more donations. The blowup came after President Obama on Saturday dashed moguls’ hopes that he would remain on the sidelines in the dispute over the U.S. House Of Representatives’ Stop Online Piracy Act and the U.S. Senate’s Protect IP Act.

Drudge Report this morning Jan. 18: From information in some tax reports released, showing Romney gave $4 million + to LDS church during past 5 years, plus shares and stakes in Bain holding companies including Burger King, Domino's, etc.

Last week the 2009-2010 Planned Parenthood annual report was released and it shows that the leading abortion group had suffered a significant decline in private contributions. In 2009 they reported 308 million in private donations from individuals, corporations, and foundations yet in 2010 they saw that number fall to 223.8 million. The chart below illustrates the drop-off:

Duluth made history last week when it became the first city in the state to pass a resolution in support of a constitutional amendment that would essentially overturn a U.S. Supreme Court decision, namely Citizens United vs. the Federal Election Commission. The court ruled in 2010 that corporations are entitled to the same constitutional rights as individual U.S. citizens. A majority of justices also concluded that political spending was a form of free speech and that corporations should be able to spend an unlimited sum of money to influence voters, without disclosing financial details of their activities. Although Duluth is...

Dear FReepers, Sun tsu cautioned smart leaders to 'keep your friends close, your enemies even closer' Besides, it's always fun to know what's happening inside your opponent's camp. For that reason, I volunteer time and contribute money to MoveOn, the community Presidential 'brownshirts' and true believers. So, after almost 500 daily emails from MoveOn, I was quite taken a back and concerned by their latest e-mail, parts of which I've posted below.

NEW YORK (AP) - The Occupy Wall Street movement, which has spent a month bashing banks and other corporations, has become a money manager itself. The movement has $435,000 - $85,000 of it donated in person at the Manhattan park that's become the epicenter of the global "anti-greed" protests and the remainder from online credit-card donations, said Darrell Prince, an activist using his business background to keep track of the daily donations. "It's way more support than we ever thought would come in," Prince said.

Anti-Wall Street protests are growing in number across the country and around the globe, but their political impact remains unclear and will likely depend upon their staying power. At a minimum, the protests have become a channel for public anger over rising economic inequality and Washington's ineffectiveness. "They are a pretty good thermometer for the level of discontent in the country," said John Green, director of the Ray C. Bliss Institute of Applied Politics at the University of Akron. "But the connection between Republicans and Wall Street and the banks will surely be an election issue next year." Romney used...

This holiday season is a time to examine who's been naughty and who's been nice, but I'm unhappy with my findings. The problem is this: We liberals are personally stingy. Liberals show tremendous compassion in pushing for generous government spending to help the neediest people at home and abroad. Yet, when it comes to individual contributions to charitable causes, liberals are cheapskates. Arthur Brooks, the author of a book on donors to charity, "Who Really Cares," cites data that households headed by conservatives give 30 percent more to charity than households headed by liberals. A study by Google found an...

U.S. wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya may weigh on the minds of voters next year, but during the early months of the 2012 election cycle, members of the U.S. Armed Forces who are active political donors are mainly rallying around two candidates, according to a new analysis by the Center for Responsive Politics. Those candidates are President Barack Obama and libertarian-leaning Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas). Overall, individuals who listed their occupation as one of the branches of the military or the U.S. Department of Defense have donated about $78,000 to presidential candidates, according to the Center's analysis of donors...

Madison - A quirk in state law will allow Gov. Scott Walker and state senators to fight looming recalls by raising unlimited campaign contributions of the kind never before seen in Wisconsin. That ability to collect donations many times larger than the regular limits could prove a significant advantage to the Republican governor and incumbent senators from either party if they face recalls. That also could push spending in the latest possible round of recalls even higher than the record $44 million in estimated spending in the round of Senate recall elections held this summer. In that previous round of recalls,...

Links to some of the stories I've read/browsed through (in no certain order)... Google Google Google Google For more, follow this search link on Google: Google

In a shameless attempt to guilt Texas resident’s into donating to President Obama’s campaign sent out the email below. Friend – Here’s something you don’t have in common with 45,829 other supporters of this movement who tell us they live in Texas. That many of your neighbors have decided to own a piece of this campaign by making a donation of whatever they could afford. For some, that meant just $5. For others, it meant $100 or more. But each had their own personal reason for giving. Our records show that you aren’t one of the 45,829 people in your...

Full title: Panic In DC As Starbucks' Schultz Calls For CEO Boycott Of Campaign Donations, Urges Americans To Go On Strike Against Their Politicians In today's most underreported news of the day, which could potentially have the biggest impact on the future of America, none other than America's CEOs, or at least one of them: Starbucks' Howard Schultz, has mass blasted an email to fellow CEOs asking for a consensual boycott on donating to political campaigns in order to encourage the nation's muppets, elsewhere idiotically called "leaders", to solve America's budget and debt impasse. Bloomberg quotes from the CEO's e-mail...

The Rise of the Democratic Super-Secret PACs. Posted by Moe Lane Friday, June 17th at 7:00PM EDT Super PACs are, of course, the political groups that were set up after the Supreme Court’s landmark free speech decision in Citizens United: they are able to raise and spend unlimited amounts of money advocating both for and against political candidates, but may not donate to those candidates directly. The Left ostensibly hates them, which did not stop them from using them to raise over 28 million dollars in the 2010 election cycle (44% of total Super PAC fundraising) to the Right’s over...

WASHINGTON, June 14 (Reuters) - The White House is under pressure from consumer activists to follow through with its plan to force government contractors to disclose their political contributions, a rule that companies say will politicize awards of government business. Consumer group Public Citizen said on Tuesday it is among those worried that the White House attempt to throw more light on campaign spending will be put on the shelf after harsh criticism from the business community. President Barack Obama is working on an order to compel bidders for federal contracts to disclose two years worth of political contributions. ......

Among those unlikely to be persuaded are the longtime Democrat fundraising powerhouse husband and wife team of Steven L. Rattner and Maureen White. Rattner is a founder of the Quadrangle Group and served as Obama’s Counselor to the Secretary of the Treasury and White is the former finance chair for the Democratic National Committee. One former Democratic donor, who spoke to the New York Times under terms of anonymity, “said it was ironic that the same president who once criticized bankers as ‘fat cats’ would now invite them to dine at Daniel, where the six-course tasting menu runs to $195...

The reach of Citizens United v FEC just got longer, if only temporarily. Relying on the controversial ruling, a federal judge in Virginia threw out part of an indictment against two men accused of secretly reimbursing donors to Hillary Clinton with corporate cash. Judge James Cacheris ruled that Citizens United established that corporations have a right to donate to political campaigns, as well as to spend their own money: A judge has ruled that the campaign finance law banning corporations from making contributions to federal candidates is unconstitutional. …Cacheris says that under last year’s Citizens United Supreme Court case, corporations...

America’s got a fee-vah and the only prescription is … Mitt Romney? The all-but-declared Republican presidential contender, who has kept his head low for much of the year as he collected cash, raised $10.25 million in a single day Monday after bringing together his network of wealthy donors to dial for dollars in a city with no shortage of them. It’s a hefty one-day total that Romney’s team hopes will show his strength in the emerging GOP field…During his 2008 run for the GOP nomination, Romney used more than $40 million of his own money to pay for campaigns in...

Government: Under the guise of rooting out Chicago-style political corruption from government contracting, President Obama seems intent on signing an executive order that would enshrine it. Last month, the White House drafted an order that would require any company bidding on a federal contract to disclose not only its company donations to federal candidates going back two years, but those of its directors and officers as well. It would also force these firms to disclose contributions to independent groups that might spend some of the money on campaign ads. And it would warehouse all this data in a searchable government...