Tag: Funds

Obama Gets Cash, Clinton Gets Snub

Several of Hillary Clinton’s large-sum donors have now hopped onto Barack Obama’s armored truck — not just by giving merely the $2,300 individual maximum to the Illinois senator’s presidential campaign.

Instead, they’re shelling over far more to a special Democratic account that’ll be able to spend unlimited sums to help Obama in the fall, according to a Los Angeles Times analysis by Dan Morain.

However, it wasn’t a two-way street last month. Obama’s donors gave Clinton a mere $105,000 in June, despite a plea from Obama that his high-roller donors help retire her $22 million in campaign debts.

In June, Clinton donors gave $1.53 million to the Obama Victory Fund, established by Obama and the Democratic Party to raise money far in excess of the $2,300 that individuals can give to a presidential candidate. By law, the fund can receive high five-figure checks and divvy them up among various other Obama-related committees.

And another thing, why were the Clinton’s not used to try and counter the lame attacks by McCain during Obama’s overseas visit?

Is That 2012 I Smell?

ABC News’ Eloise Harper Reports: Rumors are swirling over whether or not former Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton is secretly planning a run for the presidency in 2012.

Clinton aides have stressed that Sen. Clinton’s, D-N.Y., focus now is doing everything she can to help her party’s presumptive presidential nominee, Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., emerge victorious in his race for the White House.

This week Clinton sent her donors an email noting that she would welcome contributions of general election funds they donated to her presidential campaign to her 2012 Senate bid. General election funds are traditionally returned to donors if the candidate loses in the primary race. Clinton’s campaign is required to return this money to donors by August 28th. With that deadline approaching, Clinton emailed her supporters offering them that option.

The catch? The funds from her Senate account could be transferred into a possible 2012 bid for presidency, if Clinton decides to run.

pokesperson Mo Elleithee attempting to debunk the rumors that Clinton is preparing for a 2012 run said to ABC News, “The only 2012 race she is interested in is her Senate reelection bid.”

News Of The Absurd

Does anyone remember the Arabic speaking TV station started by the US?  It is called al Hurra.  I believe it was started in 2004 with the purpose of cutting through the BS and the hate of the region and give the listener the truth.

The station has not quite delivered on its promise.  As a matter of fact, it is airing anti-Israeli, anti-American programing; it also does pro-Iranian reports and has even aired a militant that has been calling for the death of an American prisoner.

But all that is not the absurd part, that is that the American taxpayer has paid $500 million for the operation of this TV station.  Now there is money well spent by your government.

Will Democrats Cave Again?

Democrats in the Congress, who came to power last year on a call to end the combat in Iraq, will soon give President George W. Bush the last war-funding bill of his presidency without any of the conditions they sought for withdrawing U.S. troops, congressional aides said on Monday

Lawmakers are arranging to send Bush $165 billion in new money for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, enough to last for about a year and well beyond when Bush leaves office on January 20.

A House of Representatives vote on the war-funding bill was expected this week. Anything the House passes would have to be approved by the Senate before the legislation is sent to Bush.

With the Pentagon running out of money to continue fighting the two wars, Congress is trying to approve new funds before its July 4 holiday recess.

With this bill, Congress will have written checks for more than $800 billion to fund the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, with most of the money going to Iraq.

Since January, 2007, when Democrats took majority control of the House and Senate, they have tried to force Bush to change course in Iraq, mostly through troop withdrawal timetables and requirements that U.S. soldiers be more thoroughly trained, equipped and rested before returning to combat.

Just what did you vote for in 2006?  Whatever it was–it is not getting accomplished.

The Billion Dollar Election

If Barack Obama looked like a campaign fund-raising champ before this week, just wait.

Now that he has captured the Democratic presidential nomination to face Republican John McCain in the November election, the Illinois senator will try to lay claim not only to many former Hillary Clinton donors, but also Democrats who have been undecided until now.

The result is likely to be another sharp spike in political donations, amid a political race already smashing fundraising records, campaign finance experts said.

“We’re easily going to have the first billion-dollar presidential race,” said Richard Parker, lecturer in public policy at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government.

Obama had raised $265.4 million from all sources through the end of April, according to the latest analysis of Federal Election Commission records by the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan, campaign finance watchdog.

New York Sen. Clinton’s total take over the same period was $214.9 million, while Arizona Sen. McCain’s was $96.7 million.

I was thinking about the cash in this season.  All this money spent to get a $500,000 a year job, but of course it comes with a buttload of power.  But is it worth the cost?  I mean would you spend a million dollars to get a $50,000 a year job?  It is really time to make this a process that anyone can enter, niot just those little rich twits that are not looking to improve the country, but rather just a meal for their egos.

The House Stalls War Funds Bill

OMG!  Congress has found their cajones, they had been looking for them since January of 2007.

An odd coalition of angry Republicans and antiwar Democrats yesterday torpedoed a $162.5 billion proposal to continue funding for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, leaving the House to pass a measure that demands troop withdrawals, bans torture and expands education benefits for returning veterans.

The surprise action left antiwar activists on and off Capitol Hill exultant, Republicans gloating and Democratic leaders baffled. Recriminations from all sides quickly followed.

House leaders had broken the war funding bill into three separate measures. The first, to continue funding combat operations, needed Republican votes to pass over the objection of antiwar Democrats. The second would impose strict Iraq-related policy measures strongly opposed by President Bush, and the third would fund domestic priorities, including a new G.I. Bill and levees around New Orleans.

The House may not as successful as some of us would like but at least they are trying to put together a veto proof deal,

A Possible Credit Crunch

Americans are having a problem with the payment of mortgages, credit cards, etc……it is a credit crunch.  But there is a bigger problem looming on the horizon.  This does not mean that a person’s problems are not important just that the other could be diasterous to ALL Americans.

we all know about the war, right?  This is the first time since the Revolutionary War that the US has financed totally on credit.  At the beginning of the war the US was already operating in a deficit and basically had to borrow money to wage its war.

From the beginning the US had to borrow monies but from where?  Here is the “good” news–40% of the funds for the war were loaned to the US by China.  This will not happen, but what if that marker is called in?  What will it do to the US?  This is not the way to run a country!

Democratic War Funding Bill

Here are the portions of the bill that the Dems will be voting on today or a bit later.

The proposed spending includes:

_$163 billion to pay for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan for the rest of this year and several months into 2009, when the new president will take over responsibility for the two wars.

_Extending unemployment benefits for workers whose benefits have run out by up to 13 weeks nationwide and an additional 13 weeks in states with unemployment rates of 6 percent or greater, including Michigan, Alaska and California. Cost: $11.1 billion over 10 years.

_Greatly expanding education for active-duty members of the armed forces since Sept. 11, 2001. Under a formula related to years of service, the measure aims to provide the equivalent of a four-year education at a state university. Cost: $720 million over 2008-2009, but $52 billion if extended for a full decade.

_Requiring the Pentagon to start withdrawing troops from Iraq within 30 days, with a goal of completing withdrawal of combat troops by December 2009.

_Requiring that U.S. reconstruction aid to Iraq be matched dollar-for-dollar by the Iraqi government.

_Blocking new Bush administration regulations that would cut federal spending on Medicaid health care for the poor and disabled by $13 billion over the next five years.

_$5.8 billion to strengthen New Orleans levees, as requested by the administration.

_$4.6 billion for military construction projects, $2.2 billion over Bush’s request, including $210 million for child-care centers and $956 million to build military hospitals.

_$1.9 billion, $745 million more than requested by Bush, for international food aid, development assistance and disaster assistance.

Just thought that my readers might like to know where the money is going.