Ron Paul Reports $8 Million In Third Quarter

Speaking at the National Press Club on Wednesday, Presidential Candidate Ron Paul (R-Texas) expressed optimism about his presidential campaign, announcing that over the past three months his campaign has collected more than $8 million and gathered over 100,000 campaign donors.

“We are very pleased with that and believe that will give us the energy to keep the campaign moving right along,” Paul stated.

In contrast, Texas Governor Rick Perry, a fellow presidential hopeful, raised more than $17 million from only 22,000 donors.

“If you get $8 million, half as much, and you get it from small individual donors who are fervently engaged in campaigning for you, that’s a lot different than getting money that more than likely might have come, for the other candidates, from special interests,” Paul enumerated. “All donors are not equal. I will take my small donations, with the enthusiasm of the people who send me the money.”

Paul continued his address and explained that much of his donations come from military troops since he is consistently advocating to bring the troops home and end war. 

“If you add up all the donations for all of the Republican candidates from military active duty people, I get twice as much because they are sick and tired of these wars and know it is not working out,” Paul exclaimed.

While Paul expressed discontent that his campaign has not recieved the same level of media attention as fellow candidates, Paul stated that his campaign faced an “uphill battle.”

“I will continue to do the campaigning and quite frankly I feel pretty optimistic about how the campaign is going,” Paul concluded.

Click here to see photos from today’s luncheon

Pelosi Defends Democrats' Rejection Of CR Bill

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) defended Democrats’ decision to reject the lower chamber’s CR bill during her weekly press briefing Thursday.

“We should not go down a different path now than we have done on natural disaster assistance,” Pelosi remarked. “That’s why we fought so hard about what the Republicans put forth. On top of that, we didn’t like the offset because it was a jobs killer.”

The House Republicans’ continuing resolution (CR) included $3.65 billion in funding  for disaster relief and was partially offset by a $1.5 billion cut to a Department of Energy advanced manufacturing loan program.

The bill was rejected by a House vote of 195-230 with only six Democrats choosing to support it. 48 conservative Republicans ultimately voted against it based on the belief that it did not cut enough spending.

“Assistance in the time of a natural disaster should not be a controversial issue,” Pelosi continued. “It hasn’t been before.”

While the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has a mere $215 million left in its disaster relief fund. Pelosi argued that the bill was not about paying for disaster.

“It was clear to us that this wasn’t about paying for the disaster but destroying an initiative that is jobs creating,” Pelosi charged.

Republican leaders are busy working towards a new resolution to fund FEMA and prevent a government shut down at the end of the fiscal year on September 30.

Click here to see photos from today’s briefing

Boehner: Government Will Not Shutdown

House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) assured reporters Thursday that the federal government will not shut down at the end of the month.

Current funding expires on September 30. A vote yesterday on a continuing resolution to extend funding through November 18 failed 195-230, with almost every single Democrat voting against. In addition, 48 conservative Republicans voted against the bill on the grounds that it did not cut enough spending.

“There is no threat of government shutdown,” Boehner said. “This resolution was designed to be a bipartisan bill and we had every reason to believe that our counterparts across the aisle would support it. Once they began to see where some of our votes were, they decided to play politics and vote against disaster relief for millions of Americans who’ve been affected.”

Democrats were unhappy with the amount of money — $3.65 billion for disaster relief in the bill, nor did they support the fact that it was partially offset by a $1.5 billion cut to a Department of Energy advanced manufacturing loan program.

Boehner said he had a feeling that the bill would be rejected.

“I’ve always believed in allowing the House to work its will,” Boehner said. “I understood what the risk was yesterday, but why not put the bill on the floor and let the members speak? And they did.”

With the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) down to $215 million in its disaster relief fund, time is running out for lawmakers to authorize new funding.

“We’re going to meet with our Members and present some options to find a way forward,” Boehner pledged. 

A new bill could come to the House floor as soon as Thursday, and leaders have warned that the House may stay in session through the weekend. Both the House and Senate are scheduled to recess next week.

Click here and here to see pictures from today’s briefing.

Google's Head Honcho Gets Grilled

Eric Schmidt, Executive Chairman of Google Inc., was seemingly unable to assure some lawmakers during a hearing this afternoon regarding the method by which search results are displayed and ranked by the search engine giant.

Schmidt appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee Antitrust, Competition Policy and Consumer Rights Subcommittee to emphasize that his company fairly encourages online competition.

“We get the lessons of our corporate predecessors,” Schmidt told Senators as he tried explaining that Google is different than previous companies that exerted monopolies over the internet, such as Microsoft in 2001.

Schmidt listed five different principles of Google Inc. that ensure they fairly compete with other internet businesses:

1. Always put consumers first. There is a ranking system so not every business can be on top.

2. Focus on loyalty. Users can easily switch to other search engines.

3. Open technology. Google Inc. releases and actively supports code that helps spur internet growth.

4. Be transparent. Google Inc. shares information about how its search engine works and provides advertisers with detailed information about their performance and return on investment

5. The only constant is change. Internet is always changing and there will always be different competitors.

Schmidt said that Google is helping the economy by continuing to hire employees, investing in local services, and helping small businesses by giving them exposure they wouldn’t otherwise have.

“Not all companies are cut from the same cloth and one company’s past is not necessarily another’s future,” Schmidt remarked. “We live in a different world today and the open internet is the ultimate level playing field.”

Some members of the committee, however, were not convinced.

While revealing a chart that depicted Google’s sites search results, Senator Mike Lee (R-Utah) accused Google of “cooking” an algorithm that placed Google-owned sites higher than competitors in search results.
According to Lee’s chart, Google’s shopping results consistently ranked third while other competitor shopping sites varied.

“It seems to me that this is an uncanny statistical coincidence,” Lee charged. “You’re third almost every time. How do you explain that?”

Schmidt responded that Google searches for the product not for product comparisons like other sites, which can explain the “strange” results.

“It’s an apple to oranges comparison,” Schmidt explained. “I can assure you we have not cooked anything.”

But members of the committee were not assured.

“That seemed like a pretty fuzzy answer to me coming from the chairman. If you don’t know, who does?” Senator Al Franken (D-Minn.) inquired.

“That really bothers me, because that’s the crux of this,” Franken continued. “And you don’t know. So we’re trying to have a hearing here about whether you favor your own stuff, and you’re asked that question, and you admittedly don’t know the answer.”

To see photos from today’s hearing click here