It's the dog days of August. It's more than three years till the next presidential election. But the Republican National Committee is attacking like it's 2016 already.
The spot above, which just appeared in Ad Hawk, Sunlight's mobile app that helps voters learn who's putting up the money behind ads, has all the earmarks of a preemptive strike against a Hillary Clinton for president campaign. The ad features Clinton's emotional testimony to Congress on the deaths of U.S. diplomatic personnel in Benghazi, Libya while she was secretary of state.
At 31 seconds, it ...
Continue readingAd spotlight: GOP family feud
The rift in the Republican party is turning into an air war.
Usually, video attacks are reserved for election opponents or members of the opposite party but as members of Congress returned home for their August recess, members of the GOP appear to be gleefully violating the late President Ronald Reagan's "11th commandment" -- the one that said you shoul never speak ill of a fellow Republican. What we've spotted so far:
Freedomworks is going after John Cornyn, the No. 2 Republican leader in the Senate leadership. The Tea Party-affiliated think tank is accusing the Texas Republican of betraying ...
Continue readingObama library bid gets lobbyist donors
President Barack Obama has yet to pick a site for his presidential library, but Hawaii's bid for it got a $5,000 donation from the global law and lobbying firm Skadden Arps.
The disclosure was made last week, when lobbyists reported their 2013 contributions to candidates and for presidential libraries and other causes. The donation came in January when Skadden Arps co-sponsored the Hawaii Presidential Center Inaugural Gala in Washington during the weekend of Obama's second inauguration.
While the money did not go to the president or any committees associated with him, it's an early indication of ...
Continue readingInfluence Profile: New Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos
Updated: 6:12 p.m.
In a town where he now owns one of the biggest megaphones, Jeff Bezos has kept a low political profile.
The Amazon founder, who on Monday announced that he's buying the Washington Post, has made relatively few political contributions, most of them in the other Washington -- Washington state, where he makes his home. But Bezos has made up in size what his influence profile lacks in quantity.
Last year, he gave $2.5 million to Washington United for Marriage, a group that successfully defended a state law allowing same-sex nuptials, singlehandedly underwriting one-fifth of ...
Continue readingA-Rod’s political picks
Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani made his reputation as a take-no-prisoners prosecutor, but he's showing an uncharacteristic soft spot for at least one alleged miscreant who happens to wear pinstripes.
Turns out that Alex Rodriguez, whom Giuliani is urging fans not to boo when the New York Yankees slugger returns to the diamond tonight after a long injury rehab and under an enormous legal cloud, is one of hizzoner's political benefactors.
Rodriguez, who faces a potential lengthy ban by Major League Baseball over charges that he's a repeat user of performance-enhancing drugs, maxed out in ...
Continue readingNew super PACs drawing big bucks
Among super PACs organized this year, 13 of them have raised at least $50,000 already. Altogether, the 13 newcomers have raised $16.5 million just months after forming. That's more than a quarter of the $59 million that all super PACs have brought in so far this cycle.
Continue readingMining interests want to mine near streams
When a House subcommittee takes up a mining industry-backed bill at a hearing Friday, it will mark another episode in a highly partisan saga dating back at least to the George W. Bush Administration involving the dumping of waste from coal mines near streams. The bill, H.R. 2824, is sponsored by Reps. Bill Johnson, R-Ohio, and Douglas Lamborn, R-Colo., both of whom count the mining industry among their top contributors, according to Influence Explorer.
Environmentalists charge the Bush-era rule repealed decades-old, though not well enforced, prohibitions on mining activities within 100 feet of streams. The mining industry backs the ...
Continue readingZimbabwe opposition figure hires D.C. lobbyists
Morgan Tsvangirai may have been cheated out of yet another election against Zimbabwe strongman Robert Mugabe in Wednesday's landmark election, but a key figure in his party is ramping up his presence in Washington.
Continue readingSenate incumbents already seeing an uptick in campaign cash
A little more than a year before the next round of congressional elections, at least 25 Senate incumbents and challengers have raised $1 million or more for their campaign war chests, second quarter reports now available at the Federal Election Commission show.
The filings are a testament to the power of incumbency: All but one of the 25 members of the million-dollar club are either incumbent senators or House members seeking a promotion to the upper chamber of Congress.
At the top of the heap are two early-bird candidates: Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., who just won a special election to ...
Politically connected nonprofits have long bested the IRS
The Republican Governors Public Policy Committee is a nonprofit organization with a multimillion dollar budget devoted to "promoting social welfare and efficient and responsible government practices" according to the most recent tax return it filed with the Internal Revenue Service. On its website, the group tells a different story: It's "the official policy organization of the nation’s Republican governors."
As House Government Oversight and Reform Committee Chair Darrell Issa, R-Calif., prepares to broaden his investigation of the Internal Revenue Service's admitted targeting of conservative groups ...
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