Free Republic

The Berger Action Fund, one arm of liberal Swiss billionaire Hansjörg Wyss’ philanthropic empire, gave tens of millions to one of America’s most prolific Democrat-aligned dark money groups. The Berger Action Fund, a 501(c)(4) nonprofit organization, gave $35 million to the liberal dark money group Sixteen Thirty Fund in 2022, tax documents show. Sixteen Thirty Fund in 2022 poured tens of millions into Democrat-aligned PACs, groups supporting left-wing ballot measures and voter mobilization operations designed to increase turnout among Democrat-friendly demographics, according to tax forms. Wyss, a Swiss billionaire who made his fortune selling medical devices, had not disclosed publicly...

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Wednesday, November 7, 2018 Former U.S. Congressman Sentenced to 10 Years in Prison for Extensive Fraud, Tax, and Election Crimes Scheme Former U.S. Congressman Stephen E. Stockman was sentenced today to serve 120 months in prison and ordered to pay $1,014,718.51 in restitution, to be followed by three years of supervised release, for orchestrating a four-year scheme to defraud charitable donors of hundreds of thousands of dollars and secretly to funnel the proceeds to pay for personal expenses and to illegally finance his campaigns for public office. Assistant Attorney General Brian A. Benczkowski of the Justice Department’s...

Dog rescuers, flush with donations, buy animals from the breeders they scorn An effort that animal rescuers began more than a decade ago to buy dogs for $5 or $10 apiece from commercial breeders has become a nationwide shadow market that today sees some rescuers, fueled by Internet fundraising, paying breeders $5,000 or more for a single dog. The result is a river of rescue donations flowing from avowed dog saviors to the breeders, two groups that have long disparaged each other. The rescuers call many breeders heartless operators of inhumane “puppy mills” and work to ban the sale of...