Free Republic

Sen. Arlen Specter's switch to the Democratic Party is prompting his campaign donors large and small to demand their money back, including several Republican senators whose political action committees gave tens of thousands of dollars to the Pennsylvania lawmaker. Sen. Johnny Isakson didn't waste any time putting himself at the front of the refund line. The Georgia Republican asked Mr. Specter for a return of his leadership political action committee's $5,000 contribution Tuesday on the Senate floor - just hours after Mr. Specter announced he was changing his political stripes. "Senator Specter readily agreed to return the contribution," said Isakson...

my first vanity ever..... I would like some confirmation of the present McPalin campaign.... I live in a no-fly zone apparently and we get no ads here... ARE there McPalin ads?...are they effective?...where are they being run,if anywhere?.....Do we have 527's and are they doing anything?.... who deserves more money right now for good work....which pac or the Rnc or the compliance fund..???.. if we had some sense of where we are, maybe some needs could get filled.... lets brainstorm.....

Dear Leader Nancy Pelosi has a problem. It's her credibility. While claiming to support legislation that would make it illegal to hire family members onto campaign staffs, it seems that she has been paying her husband nearly $100,000 over the past 9 years for doing just that. Pelosi paid husband with PAC funds Financial Leasing Services Inc. (FLS), owned by Paul F. Pelosi, has received $99,000 in rent, utilities and accounting fees from the speaker's "PAC to the Future" over the PAC's nine-year history. Now strictly speaking, what Pelosi is doing isn't illegal. But it is the height (or depth)...

While the media elite goes after Vets for Freedom for making a TV buy for John McCain, they're giving Barack Obama a free ride as he surfs a wave of PAC money to the Democratic nomination, a wave that, if anything, is nearing tsunami proportions despite his boasts that he doesn't accept donations from PACs. The political committees of just one such entity -- which according to Obama's own website, he "begged" for their support -- dwarf the Vets' $1 million ad buy.

WASHINGTON -- The housing industry already has given more money in political contributions this election cycle than in the entire previous cycle, while winning favorable provisions in an emergency housing bill moving through the legislature. Through May, mortgage bankers and brokers, real-estate companies and home builders had given more than $95 million to federal candidates and political parties so far this election cycle, according to the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics. That compares to about $57 million at this point in the 2006 cycle. The recipients include people with key roles in the legislation. On the Senate Banking Committee, they...

Robert Novak pulls together the politics of the Democratic refusal to call the Senate's bipartisan FISA reform bill to the House floor last week. Instead of taking a vote that Blue Dog Democrats has assured her would pass on that bill, Pelosi tried embarrassing the White House by voting for a 21-day extension to the current reform bill -- and that failed, with some Blue Dogs opposing it along with the Republicans, as well as some hard-Left Representatives that oppose FISA reform outright. Why did Pelosi tube the bill that would have easily passed and therefore extended the protections passed...

...In the years since she was forced to pull her nomination as Bush's labor secretary after admitting payments to an illegal immigrant, Chavez and her immediate family members have used phone banks and direct-mail solicitations to raise tens of millions of dollars, founding several political action committees with bankable names: the Republican Issues Committee, the Latino Alliance, Stop Union Political Abuse and the Pro-Life Campaign Committee. Their solicitations promise direct action in the "fight to save unborn lives," a vigorous struggle against "big labor bosses" and a crippling of "liberal politics in the country." That's not where the bulk of...

DID YOU HAVE ANY IDEA THAT SO MUCH PAC MONEY WAS FLOATING AROUND? For instance, the US Telecom Association reported spending $3,100,000 in the last half of 2006. That's down from $15,280,000 that was spend in the first six months of 2006. AT&T Services Inc. (and affiliates) spent $13,595,451 in the last six months of 2006. AT&T spent $5,515,269, BellSouth $3,294,777, and Cingular Wireless $4,740,000 in the first half of 2006. AARP spent $11,040,000 in the last half of 2006, down from $12,120,000 in the first half. American Hospital Assn. spend $8,280,000 in the last half of 2006, up from...

The advocacy groups that rose to prominence in 2004 have scaled back their federal activity this election. Instead, 527s are focusing on state issues and elections. Liberals have raised more money than conservatives. In politics, the money behind the message speaks volumes. And although the issue advocates known as 527 committees continue to be somewhat elusive, the Center for Responsive Politics has found that these tax-exempt groups are increasingly putting their 2006 money into state-level messages, instead of focusing on national issues. 527 committees raise unlimited money for political activities, such as voter mobilization efforts, and use advertising to push...

Writing in Sunday's Washington Post, Marc Ambinder observed, “Both parties have well-financed internal agitators who yank tight the chains of ideological discipline -- think of MoveOn.Org on the left and the Club for Growth on the right ... The Republican base is fracturing around fiscal probity, immigration and cultural issues.” He's right. And it seems the Republican Party committees are actually working around-the-clock to expedite the process. It has been much noted that the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) has spent millions of dollars against conservative Steve Laffey in Rhode Island. But now, the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) has...

House Republican leaders proposed changes in lobbying laws yesterday that would include a crackdown on independent, big-money committees that heavily aided Democrats in the 2004 elections.[snip] Rep. John A. Boehner (R-Ohio), recently elected House majority leader, has argued that it is far more important to increase disclosure requirements for lobbyists and lawmakers than to limit their interaction. But in a surprising development yesterday, House GOP leaders decided to try to intervene in a fast-growing sector of campaign finance that has mostly benefited Democratic candidates.[snip] Instead, the groups would be governed by federal campaign finance laws that would restrict such giving...

New York Sen. Hillary Clinton has always been tightfisted with a dollar - and that hasn't changed she began raising cash for her 2008 presidential campaign. The New York Post reports that so far this year, just 8 percent of spending by Hillary's political action committee, HillPAC - a meager $75,000 - has gone to support other Democrats currently running for office. Two years ago, Hillary's fundraising chief Patti Solis Doyle told The Post: "HillPAC was founded to elect other Democrats." But instead the former first lady seems to be hoarding the rest of the cash for herself - pouring...

Landowners become PALS to combat eminent domain by predatory L.A. redevelopment wolf-PACS Wednesday, August 03, 2005 With all the media hullabaloo about the recent U.S. Supreme Court case eminent domain ruling, one would think that local redevelopment agencies are hunkered down in bunkers fearing the wave of new legislation being proposed in California and other states to eliminate the use of eminent domain for redevelopment projects. Not so in Los Angeles where the City Council has adopted new procedures which will grab power away from eight citizen advisory committees for redevelopment projects, called Project Area Committees or PACS. In reaction...

U.S. House freshmen are depending much more on political action committees to fuel their re-election campaigns. In the first quarter of this year, 43 percent of the newcomers' re-election campaign dollars came from PACs, a 15 percent increase from when they ran as non-incumbents, according to data collected by the Center for Responsive Politics. "More of the early money, raised particularly by freshmen, comes from PACs than it does from individuals," Steven Weiss, spokesperson for the Center for Responsive Politics (CRP), told Cybercast News Service. "That says that politicians are very reliant on PACs to receive an early boost in...

HARTFORD -- If it's true that an army travels on its stomach, then the General Assembly -- and particularly its Democratic majority -- may be ready to enlist. A review of five major political action committees with ties to legislative leaders shows more than $20,000 was spent on restaurants and liquor since January 2004 -- and that doesn't include food and drink purchases tied to PAC fundraisers or connected to individual campaigns. It also doesn't cover several thousand dollars in PAC funds spent each legislative session to bring in lunches or dinners for lawmakers on days when House or Senate...

Money the 'lifeblood of politics': Legislative PACs dole out big bucks for perks, favors, dining, drinking HARTFORD -- What do contributions to a charity for multiple sclerosis patients, a bargain condominium rental, and tens of thousands of dollars in restaurant bills have to do with the politics of the Connecticut General Assembly? These and other perks, financed over the past two years by political action committees connected to state lawmakers, play not only a key role in Capitol affairs but an ever-growing one. A review by the Journal Inquirer of more than 25 PACs tied to lawmakers shows they paid...

The media is having a field day with Tom Delay these days. If you have seen the news or read a paper the past few days, you have heard "Delay" and "ethics violations" or "scandal" at least a dozen times. The supposed violations consist of a trip to Russia paid by business interests in 1997 and Delay's wife and daughter being paid by political action and campaign committees. What most people don't realize is that many members of Congress have family members working for political campaigns or lobbying firms. Let's look at just one prominent example: Senate Democrat Leader Harry...

A group that helps female Democratic candidates who support abortion rights is asking a federal judge to block new campaign finance rules that it argues will cripple its ability to participate in state and local elections. The lawsuit filed Wednesday by EMILY's List in U.S. District Court asks a judge to block Federal Election Commission regulations that took effect Jan. 1. The group contends that the commission exceeded its authority and violated free-speech rights by imposing the new fund-raising and spending limits.

BUY BLUE? I DON'T THINK SO. Now here is an interesting website for you to take a look at. The title says "Choose the Blue." By searching the various categories through this website you can discover which political party PACs are supported by various corporations and corporate employees in several fields of business. The object of the website is to get loyal Democrats to stop spending their money with companies that lend the greater support to the Republican party. Some examples: In the auto insurance category, Progressive Insurance shows a 91% support for Democrats while State Farm shows an 81%...

Now that the elections are over, the race is on - the race to take credit for some of the victories, that is. Interest groups that invested heavily in the victorious presidential and Congressional campaigns are touting their contributions to winning efforts to make it known that they are forces to be reckoned with. For instance, today the National Rifle Association distributed a compilation of its work in South Dakota on behalf of Senator-elect John Thune, a Republican, in his successful effort to oust the Senate Democratic leader, Tom Daschle, from his South Dakota seat: 300 ads in 150 newspapers...

Led by labor unions, interest groups that can urge the public to elect or defeat candidates have poured at least $27 million into the presidential race since Labor Day, with Democratic candidate Sen. John Kerry's backers outspending President Bush's by a ratio of more than 5-to-1. The efforts range from pro-Kerry hard-hat stickers handed out by the International Union of Painters and Allied Trades Political Action Together Political Committee to pro-Bush radio ads, funded by the National Right to Life political action committee, airing in every battleground state. Among the biggest spenders is the United Auto Workers PAC, which yesterday...

On his Monday radio show, Rush reviewed political contributions and erroneously credited Corporate and Institutional political contributions to the Kerry Campaign. A more critical reivew of his source notes these funds originate from employee PACs. Corporate contributions to campaigns are illegal. Needless to say, Rush Limbaugh's comments caused a tidal wave of discontent from his incorrect attribution. The accused heard rage from their investors and clients. In fact "Open Secrets" records show some these same PACs contributed more to Bush than Kerry! It appears that in this case, Rush Limbaugh is half right and half wrong!

Mrs. Heinz-Kerry and her connection to The Tides Foundation is not ‘new‘ news. The Tides Foundation’s connection to moveon.org isn’t breaking news, either. Nor is moveon.org’s connection to Texans for Truth. What is lesser known is the Communist Party’s willingness to back Kerry in this election. They’ve encouraged their members to vote for him instead of their own candidate. Their sole reason? Getting rid of President Bush. The W.W.W.P. (The Socialist Party) openly brags of infiltrating the unions. They brag about having Party members placed in positions to negotiate contracts for union memberships. Many of the people who give money...

The $50 million Dems The real VIPs in the fight to oust George W. Bush won’t be on the FleetCenter stage next week. They’re the wealthy funders of progressive ‘527’ groups. BY DAVID S. BERNSTEIN ONE YEAR AGO, conventional political wisdom held that the Democratic presidential nominee would be in trouble right now. After spending all his cash in a tough primary battle, the thinking went, the candidate would have to spend April through June scrambling to raise money for the general campaign. In the meantime, Bush’s team would be free to use that three-month window to define the Democrats’...

Famous financier Sir John Templeton has donated $1 million through his foundation to a political group that will encourage political conservatives to vote this November. Templeton’s significant donation is another sign the hotly contested 2004 race may turn out to be a battle of billionaires for the hearts and minds of Americans. The John Templeton Foundation, launched in 1987 by philanthropist, author and financier Sir John Mark Templeton, has earmarked the donation to kick-start an independent-expenditure group that will “counter the millions of dollars being spent to attack and discredit President Bush by leftist organizations such as those supported by...

WASHINGTON (AP) - Federal regulators on Thursday refused to impose new restrictions on political groups that are spending millions on the presidential election, and Republicans predicted the decision would open the spending floodgates on their side. Several Democratic groups have already begun spending large donations on advertising and get-out-the-vote activities. Republicans had asked to step in and stop the activities under the campaign law that broadly banned big checks known as "soft money" from federal elections. But four of the six Federal Election Commission members on Thursday refused to step in, tabling the issue for at least three months. Democratic...

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has raised and spent nearly $40 million in the last year. His record-setting pace of fund-raising is spread among six different committees dating back to 2002. This week, the governor received tax-exemption from the IRS to also established a private nonprofit group to raise money and conduct political activities. Here is the list of the governor's committees: Citizens for Afterschool Programs, Yes on Proposition 49. The 2002 committee organized to support a ballot initiative that pledged more funds for after school programs. Secretary of state ID # 1240592. Arnold Schwarzenegger's Total Recall Committee. Organized in 2003 to...

On March 22, 2002, during the debate over McCain-Feingold, John Kerry said, “The American people have become almost numb to these kinds of staggering figures, and they have come to expect fund-raising records to be broken with each election cycle.” He continued, “What is far worse for our democracy is that the public also believes that this money buys access and influence that average citizens don't have.... We can't go on leaving our citizens with the impression that the only kind of influence left in American politics is the kind you wield with a checkbook.” source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4487131/ What a difference...

Now you can follow advocacy group spending in the 2004 elections! An innovative Web-based tool unveiled today by the Center for Responsive Politics allows voters to research advocacy groups spending millions of dollars to influence the 2004 elections and to report the activities of these groups in their communities. With the 2004 presidential and congressional races in full swing, special interest groups across the political spectrum will be airing ads, mailing flyers and operating phone banks designed to support or oppose the election of a candidate. Inconsistent reporting requirements will make identifying and tracking these groups difficult. To assist voters...

Feb. 9 issue - John Kerry needed cash, and soon. In July 1996 the Massachusetts senator was locked in a tough re-election fight, so he was more than happy to help when he heard that a generous potential contributor wanted to visit his Capitol Hill office. The donor was Johnny Chung, a glad-handing Taiwanese-American entrepreneur. Chung brought along some friends, including a Hong Kong businesswoman named Liu Chaoying.

The latest simplistic and fictitious offering by the propaganda machine known as MoveOn.org has a full compliment of untruths. But then what’s new, right? Featuring a Santa Claus checking off a list of gifts allegedly afforded big corporations by the Bush Administration it would seem that the strange and the weird at MoveOn.org haven’t been watching too much television lately. Either that or they haven’t the wherewithal to understand the McCain-Feingold Campaign Finance Reform Law. Throughout the political fundraising season, and it seems as though the season has become about as seasonal as Chicago roadwork, the Bush-Cheney Campaign hasn’t been...

Judgment day for the NEA. The nation's largest teachers' union may soon come to regret the educational-policy buzzwords "accountability" and "testing." The Internal Revenue Service is currently auditing the National Education Association and students of the NEA's political practices are betting that the powerful union's "new math" approach to its returns will flunk under long-overdue examination. A convincing stack of documents collected by the Landmark Legal Foundation reveals that for the past ten years the millions of tax-exempt funds that the 2.7-million-member union spends on political activity has wound up amounting to "zero" on its tax returns. "The IRS is...

Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) is warning K Street donors that she will interpret PAC contributions to Rep. George Nethercutt (R-Wash.) as a hostile act, even if the donors also give to her campaign. Shortly after Nethercutt announced his challenge against the incumbent senior senator, Rick Desimone, Murray’s chief of staff and the architect of her 1998 landslide reelection, began contacting lobbyists with Washington State interests, K Street sources say. He explained that his boss would be watching PAC donations closely, report several lobbyists who have interpreted the conversation as arm-twisting to prevent their donating to Nethercutt. The warnings come as...

Top 10 Congressional Fund-Raising PACs By The Associated Press The 10 congressional leadership political action committees that raised the most money during the first six months of 2003: Volunteer PAC, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., $1.4 million. Americans for a Republican Majority, House Majority Leader Tom Delay, R-Texas, $752,306. New Republican Majority Fund, Sen. Trent Lott, R-Miss., $732,775. HillPAC, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., $717,745. Interactive The Democratic Field Latest News Dem. Hopefuls Split Over Foreign Trade Edwards Touts Booklet on Campaign Trail Dem Candidates Pledge Support for Davis Lieberman Advocates Smaller Government Moseley Braun Pushes Woman President Advertisement...

Courtesy of C-SPAN (they do have some uses), here are some great, well-organized resources FReepers can use to keep informed, as well as to research and post information: TV / RADIO / WEBSITES / WEBLOGS NEWSPAPERS / MAGAZINES WHITE HOUSE / EXECUTIVE BRANCH RESOURCES CONGRESSIONAL RESOURCES JUDICIARY RESOURCES STATE / LOCAL GOVERNMENT RESOURCES THINK TANK / PAC / POLICY ORGANIZATIONS RESOURCES (RNC, DNC, and huge list of others) INTERNATIONAL GOVERNMENT RESOURCES (British Parliament and more) WAR WITH IRAQ RESOURCES AMERICAN PRESIDENTS