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Mitt Romney's top ten is made up of Goldman Sachs, followed by Credit Suisse (Switzerland), Morgan Stanley, Barclays (UK), Bank of America and JP Morgan. In contrast Romney's co-frontrunner in Iowa, Ron Paul, has a top three donor list made up of the US Army, US Navy and US Airforce.

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...

A key investor in the failed solar power company Solyndra, who was also a political donor to Barack Obama, strategized with his top executives about whether and how they should use their contacts inside the White House to help their failing business venture, according to emails surfaced by Congressional investigators Wednesday. "The White House has offered to help in the past and we do have a contact within the White House that we are working with," an adviser to billionaire Oklahoma oilman George Kaiser writes in an October 6, 2010 email. "I think the company is hoping we have some...

(Medical Xpress) -- Johns Hopkins researchers have developed a way to stimulate a rat’s stem cells after a liver transplant as a means of preventing rejection of the new organ without the need for lifelong immunosuppressant drugs. The need for anti-rejection medicines, which carry serious side effects, is a major obstacle to successful long-term transplant survival in people. With a combination of a very low, short-term dose of an immunosuppressive drug to prevent immediate rejection and four doses of a medication that frees the recipient’s stem cells from the bone marrow to seek out and populate the donor organ, the...

A Koreatown real estate developer faces nearly $184,000 in fines for allegedly making illegal contributions to the 2009 reelection campaign of L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. The city Ethics Commission meets Tuesday to decide how large a fine to hand Alexander Hugh, who was indicted by a grand jury earlier this year on charges that he conspired to circumvent campaign contribution limits, procured false documents and committed forgery. Hugh has asked the five-member commission for leniency, saying he suffered major financial setbacks in recent years and has been "deeply" humiliated by reports in the Korean and mainstream media. ... Prosecutors said...

President Barack Obama will raise money in early October with a Missouri businessman whose company benefited from a $107 million federal tax credit to develop a wind power facility in his state. Tom Carnahan, a scion of Missouri’s most prominent Democratic political family, is listed on Obama’s campaign website as a host of a $25,000-per-person fundraiser to be held in St. Louis on October 4. His energy development firm, Wind Capital Group, was helped by a sizable credit authorized in the stimulus, for an energy project in northwest Missouri.

Billionaire Obama fundraiser George Kaiser visited the White House 16 times over the past 3 years, and is caught in the middle of the Solyndra scandal as the company’s chief investor and prime beneficiary of the debt restructuring approved by the Obama Administration earlier this year. This has lead to the obvious question of whether Kaiser leveraged his political connections to obtain federal stimulus funding, and preferential treatment, but surely there might be a less nefarious explanation for Kaiser’s White House visits, right? Nah…

Executives from solar panel manufacturer Solyndra, which received over a half a billion dollars in loan guarantees from the Obama administration before filing for bankruptcy last week, are in negotations with the House Energy and Commerce Committee to openly testify before Congress next week, according to Rep. Cliff Stearns, R-Fla., the chairman of the panel's subcomittee on oversight and investigations. The company's president and chief executive, Brian Harrison, and W.G. Stover, Jr., its chief financial officer, were asked to testify as part of tomorrow's committee hearing on the questionable loans, which have embroiled the Obama administration in what Stearns deemed...

Via Andrew Lawton at Landmark Report: One of Gibson’s leading competitors is C.F. Martin & Company. The C.E.O., Chris Martin IV, is a long-time Democratic supporter, with $35,400 in contributions to Democratic candidates and the DNC over the past couple of elections (though, to be fair, he did donate a whopping $750 to Republican Congressmen in the 90s.) According to C.F. Martin’s catalog, several of their guitars contain ''East Indian Rosewood.' In case you were wondering, that is the exact same wood in at least ten of Gibson’s guitars. If true, it adds another piece to an increasingly disturbing puzzle.

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...

LONDON – A small plane carrying a liver for transplant crashed and burst into flames at England's Birmingham Airport Friday. Two crew members were injured, but rescuers managed to salvage the donor organ and rush it to a nearby hospital West Midlands Police Chief Inspector Matt Markham said the privately owned Cessna made a "hard landing" and caught fire just after 3:30 p.m. (1530GMT, 10:30 a.m. EST). He said visibility in the area, 120 miles (195 kilometers) north of London, was "appalling" because of thick fog. An airport spokesman said the plane, flying from Belfast, clipped an antenna as it...

Some of the Democratic Party’s biggest donors met Tuesday afternoon with influential party figures such as AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka, organizer Joan Fitz-Gerald and former White House aide Van Jones to discuss the lessons and implications of the GOP’s landslide midterm election victory. The meeting – organized by a group of wealthy, politically active liberals called the Democracy Alliance – took place at Washington’s swank Mandarin Oriental hotel, where off-duty police officers and other security patrolled the halls looking for reporters and other uninvited guests, who were escorted from the premises. "The agreement is that everything that goes on here...

It might be a good idea for Republican National Committee chairman Michael Steele to start screening his calls. Last week, the embattled GOP chairman took a call at his home from someone he thought was a prospective GOP donor and, during the conversation, dismissed the idea that former Sen. Norm Coleman might be after his job. "Norm is an old friend. Norm is not going to challenge me for RNC chairman," Steele said. "If he does, I'll put my record up against anyone who comes after me."

Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan has been a faithful Democratic donor over the past decade, lavishing nearly $15,000 on candidates from Barack Obama to Al Gore - a generous habit that may spark some fireworks at her confirmation hearings, experts said. “Other people whom Obama has tapped for other positions have given far more, but I think the question over potential conflicts could be raised by senators,” said Michael Beckle, a spokesman for Centers for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan watchdog organization that tracks campaign donations and lobbying.

Still tracking down that news but one thing is clear: he wasn't a Tea Partier!There are reports that Faisal Shahzad, the failed Time Square bomber was a registered Democrat in Connecticut and may be a donor to Obama's campaign. This comes after the Mayor of New York, Michael Bloomberg openly speculated that the bomber might be “somebody with a political agenda who doesn't like the health care bill or something." Coming on the heels of repeated warnings from Obama, Bill Clinton and others that Tea Parties might lead to violence it was only natural for libs to assume this attack...

The billionaire hedge fund manager at the center of an alleged fraud hatched at Goldman Sachs, a leading investment bank, has given tens of thousands of dollars to both parties. Campaign fundraising records show that John A. Paulson, founder and chairman of the hedge fund Paulson & Co., gave $30,400 to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee in June, qualifying him as a major Democratic donor. He also gave $2,300 to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s (D-Nev.) reelection campaign in February of last year and $4,800 to Senate Banking Committee Chairman Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) last April, according to records filed at...

Talk radio is no longer the only outlet for metro Atlanta commuters opposed to President Barack Obama's policies.

WASHINGTON – Former President Bill Clinton's charity released a donor list Friday under an agreement with President Barack Obama to prevent conflicts with Hillary Rodham Clinton's role as secretary of state, but it failed to identify who gave in 2009, her first year in the Cabinet post.

Gelbaum said in a statement. "My investments in alternative, clean energy companies have placed me in a highly illiquid position as a result of the general credit crisis in the American and world financial systems." (Click link above for column) Oh goodness, I hope that someone else steps in and fills the gap because we desperately need someone to continue the desecration of everything we hold dear. We need more people to spit on the graves of our veterans by removing crosses that have served as war memorials for the past 75 years. We need someone to remove Christian symbols...

A liver transplant recipient was given a public intoxication warning Monday afternoon after he registered a 0.39 percent blood-alcohol level, according to La Crosse police reports. The 34-year-old man was found on a curb at Springbrook Way and Cliffside Drive about 3 p.m., reports stated. He could not stand or walk unassisted when a family member took him home, police noted. He was taken to Gundersen Lutheran Medical Center for detoxification.

Scrambling to get 60 seconds out of every minute, Katie Meacham finally got the boyfriend to take her for a carriage ride in Central Park. He hated it, she reports. “He said, ‘You know this is a pity ride, don’t you?’ ” she said, laughing. Even though she is just 26, her days and time are at a premium. Ms. Meacham lives on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, but she is also a citizen of another country: cancer land. She has a kind of aggressive lymphoma, a disease that ruins the blood.

China has inaugurated a voluntary organ donor program, hoping to overhaul a system that now harvests the vast majority of its organs from black-market sellers and executed prisoners and leaves millions of ailing people without hope of getting a transplant. The new program, run by the national Red Cross Society with help from China’s Health Ministry, was reported by the state-run English-language newspaper China Daily on Wednesday. The newspaper quoted the vice minister of health, Huang Jiefu, as saying the goal was to create an organ donation system that “will benefit patients regardless of social status and wealth.” At least...

WASHINGTON – A day after his White House meeting with President Barack Obama, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called the United States a "deadbeat" donor to the world body while making the made the rounds on Capitol Hill. Ban's criticism Wednesday of the U.N.'s single biggest backer irked some members of the House Foreign Relations Committee. They were generally supportive of his leadership but voiced concern about U.N. efforts in areas from Sudan to Somalia. "He used the word 'deadbeat' when it came to characterizing the United States. I take great umbrage (over) that," Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, the panel's senior Republican, said...

Clinton donor benefited from legislation backed by Sen. ClintonAn upstate New York developer donated $100,000 to former President Clinton's foundation in November 2004, about the same time Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton helped... By CHARLIE SAVAGE The New York Times Originally published Sunday, January 4, 2009 at 12:00 AM WASHINGTON — An upstate New York developer donated $100,000 to former President Clinton's foundation in November 2004, about the same time Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton helped secure millions of dollars in federal assistance for the businessman's mall project. Sen. Clinton helped enact legislation allowing the developer, Robert Congel, to use tax-exempt bonds...

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. – A federal grand jury is investigating how a California firm that contributed to the political activities of New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, the nominee to head the Commerce Department, won a lucrative government contract. A person familiar with the proceedings told The Associated Press on Tuesday that the panel is looking into possible "pay-to-play" dealings between CDR Financial Products and someone in a position to push the contract through with the state of New Mexico. The person asked not to be named because the proceedings are secret.

Short on cash, some put a price on themselves Lean times spurs interest in payment for sperm, eggs, plasma — even hair By JoNel Aleccia Fri., Dec. 5, 2008 Before this fall, it might not have occurred to Michael Aylesworth to swap his sperm for money. But faced with rising bills, a dwindling budget and a fractured economy, the 30-year-old Seattle man took stock of some very personal assets — and decided to sell. “I did it because I’m a student and I’m always broke,” said Aylesworth, who spent several delicate minutes in a small room at the Seattle Sperm...

The Obama campaign has turned its security settings for accepting online contributions down to the bare minimum -- possibly to juice the numbers, and turning a blind eye towards the potential for fraud not just against the FEC, but against unsuspecting victims of credit card fraud.

A $100,000 state grant for a botanic garden in Englewood that then-state Sen. Barack Obama awarded in 2001 to a group headed by a onetime campaign volunteer is now under investigation by the Illinois attorney general amid new questions, prompted by Chicago Sun-Times reports, about whether the money might have been misspent. The garden was never built. And now state records obtained by the Sun-Times show $65,000 of the grant money went to the wife of Kenny B. Smith, the Obama 2000 congressional campaign volunteer who heads the Chicago Better Housing Association, which was in charge of the project for...

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. - Barack Obama is getting rid of an old $5,000 campaign donation that was given to him by an Illinois businessman who was indicted this week. The money was donated to Obama's U.S. Senate campaign in 2003 by Abdelhamid "Al" Chaib of LaGrange Park, Ill. Chaib was indicted Thursday on federal charges of taking part in a scheme to fraudulently obtain a $3.4 million loan. "In light of this week's news reports, we felt more comfortable donating those contributions to charity," Obama spokesman Ben LaBolt said Friday. The Democratic presidential candidate's campaign is dividing the money between two...

I am seeking some input on the following: On the Big Island of Hawaii, on the more rural south & east side, a woman has stepped forward to provide a new Catholic Church. She has already purchased the 10 acres, and has stated that she will provide the $10 million building costs, covering everything except pews and some minor interior furnishings. She has enlisted 2 teams of architects to draft 2 designs, both of which will be domed structures (ie the entire structure will be in the shape of a dome). When the bishop approves , these 2 designs will...

Sperm donor pays maintenance to lesbians By Graham Tibbetts Last Updated: 8:42pm GMT 03/12/2007 A sperm donor who helped a lesbian couple have two children is now being forced to pay thousands of pounds for their upbringing, he said. Andy Bathie, 37, agreed to assist Sharon and Terri Arnold - who were united in a religious blessing ceremony - after they assured him he would have no involvement in raising the boy and girl. Andy Bathie: Legal challenge But after the couple split up he was tracked down by the Child Support Agency and forced to make regular maintenance payments....

A man of 72 is to donate sperm to try to father his own 'grandchild'. He has been cleared to provide the sperm to his daughter-in-law to allow her to become a mother. Any baby born will be its grandfather's genetic child and a halfbrother or half-sister to the man it takes to be its father. What do you think about the case? Join the debate The case - believed to be the first of its kind in the UK - raises ethical questions about how well the child will cope with such unusual family circumstances. The Harley Street doctors...

REDWOOD CITY, Calif. (AP) - Democratic fundraiser Norman Hsu failed to appear Wednesday for a bail hearing and a judge issued a new warrant for his arrest. Hsu forfeits the $2 million bail he posted last week. Hsu had been a fugitive in California for 15 years during which time he became a top donor to Democratic candidates, including presidential contenders Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama. Hsu pleaded no contest in 1991 to a felony count of grand theft, admitting he'd defrauded investors of $1 million in a bogus investment scam. Prosecutors say he was facing up to three...

Parents who conceal the fact that a child was conceived from donor sperm or eggs could face jail under rules proposed today. The information should be declared on birth certificates to ensure children learn the truth about their creation, says a powerful committee of MPs and peers. In a report which touches on a highly-sensitive ethical issue, they argue that it would give parents "the incentive to inform their child" at the time and in the manner of their own choosing. But because it is an offence to give false information on a birth certificate, anyone who refused could be...

Tancredo: Donation from Planned Parenthood physician reflects immigration stance Presidential candidate Tom Tancredo says he won't return a campaign donation from a medical doctor who has ties to Planned Parenthood. The Colorado congressman says the donation had nothing to do with abortion, but rather the physician's support of Tancredo's immigration policy. Recently the Sam Brownback campaign sent out an e-mail saying Tancredo accepted thousands of dollars in donations from Dr. John Tanton, the founder of the Northern Michigan Planned Parenthood Association. But Tancredo says Tanton's donation is related to the doctor's affiliation with the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR)....

A controversial Dutch reality TV show featuring a contest to win a kidney was a hoax, producers Endemol have admitted. The Big Donor Show was supposed to have featured a terminally-ill woman choosing a recipient for her kidneys. However, at the last minute the programme's producers, who also make Big Brother, revealed on air that the woman starring on the reality show was a healthy actress. But the contestants trying to win the kidneys are genuine and are still in need of organs. All knew the programme was a hoax before they agreed to participate. Programme makers Endemol said their...

The businessman, influential in Pakistani circles, also aided Boxer. WASHINGTON — A Pakistani immigrant who hosted fundraisers in Southern California for Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton is being sought by the FBI on charges that he funneled illegal contributions to Clinton's political action committee and Sen. Barbara Boxer's 2004 reelection campaign. Authorities say Northridge businessman Abdul Rehman Jinnah, 56, fled the country after an indictment accused him of engineering more than $50,000 in illegal donations to the Democratic committees. A business associate charged as a co-conspirator has entered a guilty plea and is scheduled to be sentenced in Los Angeles next...

Now I'm thinking. When will we have our first famous "plastinized" celebrity? Will it be Michael Jackson albeit his missing nose? At least he wouldn't be frozen like a giant popsicle in a cryogenic chamber. What about Bill Clinton? Well, I believe he could become an instant hit given his history at the White House behind closed doors. I'm sure people will want to take a closer look at Bill Clinton's "plastinized" body and see what the big deal was about just like

Don't worry, the doctor told Brian Lykins' parents, as he prepared to use cartilage from a cadaver to fix their son's knee. A million people a year have operations that use tissue from donated dead bodies. The nation's largest tissue bank had supplied this cartilage. It was disinfected and perfectly safe, he assured them. But it wasn't. Four days after this routine, elective surgery, Lykins — a healthy, 23-year-old student from Minnesota — died of a raging infection. He died because the cartilage came from a corpse that had sat unrefrigerated for 19 hours — a corpse that had been...

Congressional candidate Pete McCloskey, running against Rep. Richard Pombo of Tracy in Tuesday's GOP primary, is returning a $2,100 campaign donation he received from a man tied to al-Qaeda. The money was from M. Yaqub Mirza, a Pakistan native living in Virginia, who has been investigated by the Justice Department for allegedly helping to finance al-Qaeda and Islamic Jihad. Mirza's offices were raided by federal authorities in March 2002. McCloskey, a moderate former House member who has raised questions about Pombo's ethics, said he's never met Mirza but would return the money. "This is America, so you are presumed innocent...

WASHINGTON - Senator Clinton's likely Republican opponent in 2006 and a South Korean newspaper are raising questions about campaign donations the New York Democrat has received from a New York businessman who is involved in an organization that sets up cultural events in North Korea. The organization was founded by a man who later resigned as South Korea's ambassador to America after allegations emerged that he helped establish a "slush fund" for South Korean politicians. "Once again serious questions surround Senator Clinton's fund-raising operation," the Republican challenger in Mrs. Clinton's Senate re-election bid, a former mayor of Yonkers, John Spencer,...

Teenager finds sperm donor dad on internet Ian Sample, science correspondent Thursday November 3, 2005 The Guardian (UK) Using nothing more than a swab of saliva and the internet, a 15-year-old boy has tracked down his anonymous sperm donor father, according to details released today. By sending a swab taken from the inside of his cheek for genetic testing, the teenager was able to use genealogy websites to trace his father by looking for men with a matching Y-chromosome, which is passed down the male line. The genetic detective work has major implications for men who have donated sperm under...

TOLEDO, Ohio - A coin dealer and major GOP donor at the center of a scandal in Ohio state government was charged Thursday with illegally funneling $45,400 in contributions to President Bush's re-election bid. Tom Noe was accused in a federal indictment of giving money directly or indirectly to 24 friends and associates, who then made the campaign contributions in their own names. In that way, he skirted the $2,000 limit on individual contributions, prosecutors said. "It's one of the most blatant and excessive finance schemes we have encountered," said Noel Hillman, section chief of the U.S. Department of Justice's...

EUREKA -- Rob Arkley has apparently given more to help pass Proposition 75 than any other single individual in the state of California. According to the California secretary of state’s website, Arkley heads up a long list of big donors supporting Proposition 75 with a total of $302,000 given to groups supporting its passage. The contributions came in two different contributions, one for $250,001 in September and another for $52,000 made earlier in August. Arkley did not return a call for comment by deadline. But an employee for Security National, owned by Arkley, called the Times-Standard and said his boss...

Just a headline, presently.

Anonymous Donor Thanks America for His Rescue The Associated Press Published: Sep 7, 2005 WASHINGTON (AP) - The anonymous donor turned up at a U.S. diplomatic office and presented an envelope with 1,000 euros (about $800) for Hurricane Katrina relief efforts. It was a way of repaying a debt to the United States for being liberated by American soldiers from a concentration camp and treated more than 60 years ago, Sean McCormack, the State Department spokesman, said Wednesday in relating the incident. The donor was 90 years old, but that is all McCormack would say by way of identification. "This...

Eager to show the US that Israel cares, Jerusalem is offering the US a field hospital, forensic experts and even organized prayer in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, diplomatic officials said Sunday. According to the officials, Jerusalem is still waiting for a response from Washington whether it has need for an IDF field hospital to be set up in areas hit by the Hurricane, or whether the US can use Israeli forensic specialists expert in identifying bodies. Israel experts, according to officials in Jerusalem, gained valuable experience identifying flood victims during January's tsunami when a team of experts was sent...

SACRAMENTO - Less than two months after giving $10,000 to an initiative campaign committee tied to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, a well-connected private prison company was tentatively awarded a $20 million contract by the state of California to operate a San Joaquin Valley correctional facility. Altogether over the past two years, GEO Group has donated $68,000 to various Schwarzenegger committees, according to campaign reports. Officials with the state prison system insist there is no tie between the donations and the contract, which is part of a broader strategy to use less-expensive private beds to relieve severe overcrowding in the 33 state-run...

LOS ANGELES - George Lopez underwent a kidney transplant with an organ donated by his wife, a publicist for the actor-comedian said Monday. George and Ann Lopez "are resting comfortably in their Los Angeles home and are both expected to make a full recovery," according to a statement from spokeswoman Marleah Leslie. The operation occurred last week at an undisclosed hospital in Los Angeles, said another spokeswoman, Ann Gurrola. Lopez, star of the ABC comedy "George Lopez," had a genetic condition that caused kidney deterioration, the release said. Further information on the condition was unavailable, Gurrola said. Filming on his...