I don't see a diary about this under the Donald Sterling tag, so I'm going to do a quick one. Turns out Donald Sterling, whom the right-wing echo chamber has been falsely claiming to be a Democratic fundraiser, Democratic bundler, and major Democratic contributor -- isn't a Democrat at all. He's been a registered Republican since 1998.
There's a good Daily Beast article (Donald Sterling and the Neverending Fantasy of ‘Democrat’ Racism) which I'd read earlier today (it turned up two political contributions I hadn't known about when I wrote a diary about Sterling yesterday). I went back there a few moments ago to check some facts and discovered they'd updated it with the news about Sterling's actual party registration.
Here's the part about Sterling's party affiliation:
Update: Now comes the utterly shocking news that despite his campaign donations to the contrary, Sterling is—sit down—a registered Republican. The Los Angeles Times's Michael Hiltzik tweeted as much this morning, and I confirmed through a source that a Donald T. Sterling who lives in Beverly Hills and was born on April 26, 1934 is indeed a registered Republican voter in L.A. County. Now it's true, he makes no campaign contributions, so he's obviously not a gung-ho big-P Political Republican. But still, there goes your racist Democrat. Sorry, Daily Caller!
But I recommend clicking the link and reading the rest of the article. (Sorry, no time at the moment to post some excerpts myself.)
EDITED TO ADD: Aha! Mother Jones has a piece up on this too. I'm going to take a few moments more and add that in, below the orange squiggle...
Mother Jones:
Does it really matter whether racist LA Clippers owner Donald Sterling is a registered Democrat? Or a Republican? Or a member of the Pirate Party of Russia?
Well, according to multiple conservative media outlets, yes, it does matter. On Sunday, National Review ran a blog post originally titled, "Racist Clippers Owner Donald Sterling Is a Democrat." ...
Not that Sterling's broader political views or party affiliation have much to do with the controversy over his insanely racist comments, but here's a news flash for those conservatives eager to bring up the topic: He's a Republican.
On Sunday, Michael Hiltzik, a Los Angeles Times columnist, tweeted that local voter records show Sterling to be a registered Republican "since 1998." We followed up on that, and a search of the Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder's website for Sterling's name, date of birth, and address confirmed that he's registered as a Republican.