marcus bernie home depot bak

main oddly blank 519

hegseth vet vff fail

langone also big gop funder manchinema

see sedition caucus

https://www.alternet.org/2022/04/fortune-500-companies-bankrolling-republicans/

===

this fucking guy 10 25 fail up, slept to top; 5 affairs w 1st of 3 wives, 2nd ultimate

singer alito astroturf vet orgs and koch, 1st 3

not spec ops 101st? ; war crimes in his unit;

10 25

43:37

Now playing

Pete Hegseth: Everything You Didn't Know About His Sh*tty Past

Hysteria

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:{:{75K views}:

Oct 12, 2025

In our 26th episode of This F*cking Guy, Erin and Alyssa dive deep into the past of United States Secretary of War, Pete Hegseth. From his sexist ideologies, drunken antics, cheating scandals and Fox News career to his embarrassing failures to incompetent leadership, this is definitely our most inebriated and moronic fcking guy of all time.

Sources: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1b...

CHAPTERS

0:00 - Intro

1:10 - Pete's childhood

3:38 - Pete's early bad ideas

6:38 - Pete's first marriage and military career

15:45 - Pete on Fox News and drinking problems

21:00 - Ad break

22:54 - Pete gets into politics (and more drinking)

32:49 - Trump picks Pete for Secretary of Defense

harv ret to sender

princeton tory funder?

...

3:41

the Tories March 2002 issue that the reason that some Americans sympathized with the Taliban was because they lacked

3:47

a male disciplinary figure. Later in that article, Hexath advocated parental discipline that included spanking and

3:54

shoving soap in children's mouths. Hot take for the ages. Of course, there was

3:59

the requisite railing against DEI. Back then, it was just called diversity. Here's what Hegsth wrote about that.

4:06

Quote, "Race can be a legitimate part of what makes up a diverse campus, but it also doesn't define anyone. Allan Keys

...

them. So theatrical. He loves drama. Hexath also got himself into some hot water over publishing

5:19

claims that having sex with an unconscious woman was not rape. I'm sorry, what? Here's the exact quote

5:25

from an opinion column that ran in the Tory. The columnist is describing a session he had to attend during college

5:30

orientation where attendees had to determine whether a sketch mentioning a man having sex with a passed out woman

5:36

counted as rape. Quote, "The actual instance portrayed in the skit was in fact not a clear case of rape, at least

5:42

not in my home state. In short, though intercourse was not consented to, there was no duress because the girl drank

...

7:27

questioning the value in offering up human lives in defense of American business interests, he found meaning

7:32

again in advocating for more war. In 2006, he started working with a pro-war veterans organization called Veterans

7:39

for Freedom. VFF was meant to appear like it was a grassroots movement for pro-war American troops who just wanted

7:45

to get themselves and all their friends and colleagues blown up in the Middle East as soon as possible. But it was actually what's known as an astroturf

7:52

organization. Oh, Alyssa. Astroturf fake grass. I just got that like right now.

7:59

VF was actually founded with money from three conservative billionaires who are

8:04

now dead. Bernard Marcus, the founder of Home Depot. Jerry Parentio, a longtime Univision executive who lived in the

8:11

mansion from the Beverly Hillbillies, and businessman and former neighbor of Oprah Winfrey, Harold Simmons. Between

8:17

the three of them, they've been married a total of eight times. Just a fun fact about these boosters of conservative

8:22

family values. Journalist Jane Mayer also found ties between the organization and other shadowy right-wing moneymen

8:28

like Paul Singer. You might remember Paul Singer as the guy standing to the left of Supreme Court Justice Samuel

8:33

Alto wearing pristine waiters and holding a giant salmon in this photo which is from a ProPublica story about

8:39

how Paul Singer paid for Samuel Alito to go on a luxury Alaskan fishing trip.

8:44

Alto did not disclose it and later did not recuse himself from Supreme Court cases directly involving Paul Singer's

8:50

companies. These [ __ ] guys. In 2007, Hegth became the leader of VFF. He was a

Exposing Those Responsible for the Attack Ads

So who is really behind these grossly misleading attack ads? The AAN does not disclose the names of the companies and individuals bankrolling it, but its board includes :{big spenders:(style="color:#000000;"):}: who have bankrolled many GOP campaigns. Some of these fat cats are affiliated with some of the wealthiest corporations in the country, like :{Goldman Sachs:(style="color:#000000;"):}:, :{Home Depot:(style="color:#000000;"):}:, and :{ChoicePoint:(style="color:#000000;"):}:. This is big money in a race that already pits multi-millionaire Ron Johnson up against one of the :{least wealthy U.S. Senators:(style="color:#000000;"):}:, who does not have the deep pockets to finance his own race. Here is just a sample of the multimillionaire businessmen behind the attack ads and some of the companies they are affiliated with:

* :{Kenneth G. Langone:(style="color:#000000;"):}: He's worth $1 billion and is listed as :{the 347th richest man:(style="color:#000000;"):}: in the U.S. Here are some of the companies he has been affiliated with:

** Home Depot--Langone co-founded this home-remodeling store, one of the nation's largest retailers, whose top employees have given millions to the GOP and which, among other things, :{got a $48 million tax break in the Bush/Cheney energy bill:(style="color:#000000;"):}: (lifting a tariff on Chinese-made ceiling fans), and was also rewarded by Bush, who used the store as the :{PR:(style="color:#000000;"):}: backdrop for a speech about the economy.

** ChoicePoint--Langone co-founded this "'data-mining" company (mining your data to market to the government and businesses), which among other scandals was :{embroiled in the 2000 election debacle in Florida:(style="color:#000000;"):}: under a $4 million no-bid contract to give Florida Secretary of State :{Katherine Harris:(style="color:#000000;"):}: a list of 8,000 names of people :{to drop from the election rolls:(style="color:#000000;"):}: who were supposedly felons, who turned out not to be.

You probably recall that Harris declared Bush the winner of Florida by 1,784 votes and five :{right-wing:(style="color:#000000;"):}: judges on the Supreme Court stopped the recount, making Bush president--so a couple thousand voters turned away could have been the difference, even without the flawed butterfly ballot that added up for Pat Buchanan. You may not recall how ChoicePoint contributed to the election of Bush through its faulty list. And you might not have known that ChoicePoint executives like Langone and (now deceased) Rik Rozar gave hundreds of thousands to the :{GOP:(style="color:#000000;"):}:. (I have testified in favor of Senator Feingold's efforts to :{protect Americans from unwarranted data-mining:(style="color:#000000;"):}: by the :{FBI:(style="color:#000000;"):}:through National Security Letters and I have flagged the FBI's lucrative contracts with ChoicePoint.)

* :{C. Boyden Gray:(style="color:#000000;"):}:, heir to the :{R.J. Reynolds:(style="color:#000000;"):}: Tobacco Company fortune. Boyden has played a key role in most of the well-financed right-wing groups like :{Citizens for a Sound Economy:(style="color:#000000;"):}:, founded by the :{Koch Brothers:(style="color:#000000;"):}: and related to the beltway gang behind the :{Tea Party:(style="color:#000000;"):}:, :{FreedomWorks:(style="color:#000000;"):}:. Gray has helped orchestrate everything from :{the big business attack on the EPA's regulation of air quality standards:(style="color:#000000;"):}: to the effort to pack the courts with right-wing ideologues through his attack machine, the ":{Committee for Justice:(style="color:#000000;"):}:." When I worked as a staffer in the Senate, I helped fight Gray's efforts to use smear campaigns to pack the courts; and Gray's group was one of the recipients of files of mine and my colleagues taken by Republican political operatives. If you're disgusted with the Supreme Court decisions of right-wing ideologues like :{John Roberts:(style="color:#000000;"):}: and :{Clarence Thomas:(style="color:#000000;"):}:, you can thank Gray for helping them secure lifetime jobs as judges.

accord to AN going down flailing, but with $?

https://www.alternet.org/2020/07/major-donors-to-pro-life-federalist-society-are-plowing-money-into-susan-collins-senate-campaign-report/

Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, may have risked her political career on a pivotal vote to confirm Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh. While recent polls show the move has cost Collins critical support, especially among women voters, the vote has benefited her in another regard.

Since Collins cast her vote in 2018, she has raised about $200,000 from major donors to the Federalist Society, many of whom had never given to Collins before, according to The Daily Beast.

Collins, who for years appealed to women voters by stylizing herself as that rarest of all political birds — a pro-choice Republican — received the contributions to her campaign and two affiliated political action committees from 39 donors connected to the vehemently pro-life Federalist Society, including its former executive vice president Leonard Leo.

Leo, along with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, is one of the main drivers behind the GOP’s historic streak of stacking federal courts over the course of Trump’s term with conservative judges who oppose women’s reproductive rights.

though Leo had never given money directly to Collins before, he and his wife, Sally each made a maximum $5,600 contribution to Collins’ campaign last year.

Leo’s value to the Federalist Society lies in his ability to connect and woo individuals. In an interview with Vox, Amanda Hollis-Brusky, a political scientist at Pomona College who wrote a book about the Federalist Society, said that Leo runs two massive annual events for the Society: the National Lawyers Convention, “which is like a ball for the who’s who in the conservative legal movement,” as well as an annual law student convention, which connects students with academics and, yes, judges.

“Where the funding has made the most difference is in the kinds of events that you see in the law schools,” she said. “Students tell me and faculty tell me, no matter what side of the political spectrum they come from, they’ll always attend the Federal Society events, because they have the best food and the best alcohol.”

Collins attended a fundraiser Leo threw for her last August at his $4 million summer mansion in her home state of Maine. Leo purchased the home the same month in which Kavanuagh was confirmed.

That event seems to have connected the pro-choice Republican to a number of new Federalist Society backers, a notion Collins scoffed at to Bloomberg reporter Steven Dennis.

“So I went to a 20-person fundraiser,” Collins said. “It’s just ridiculous, absolutely ridiculous.”

The senator suggested that such criticism was hypocritical, because her opponents were using her vote to confirm Kavanaugh to raise money for her general election opponent, a line which she has tossed out before when denouncing the crowdfunding campaign.

Other Society-connected first-time donors included Daniel Casey — president of the Judicial Crisis Network, which threw millions behind nominations of Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch — and Philip Anschutz,the Colorado billionaire philanthropist who owns conservative publications The Weekly Standard and the Washington Examiner and whose foundation has supported the Federalist Society. Both gave Collins $5600, the maximum for the election cycle, according to The Beast.

Following Collins’ 2018 vote, Casey’s Judicial Crisis Network reportedly announced a six-figure TV and digital ad campaign in Maine thanking her for supporting Kavanaugh.

“Thank you Susan Collins for thoughtfully reviewing Judge Kavanaugh’s judicial record and weighing the evidence, and for being a reasonable voice during this incredibly divisive time,” Carrie Severino, the group’s chief counsel and policy director, wrote. “You put Maine and our country first – thank you.”

Many Society donors who had previously given to Collins reportedly ramped up their spending.

Bernard Marcus, co-founder of Home Depot, and wife Billi Wilma reportedly gave a combined total of $20,800 to Collins’ campaign and an affiliated PAC. Marcus is a Platinum member of the Federalist Society’s Madison Club, an echelon reserved for members who give $100,000 or more. The conservative power couple donated $3,000 total to Collins’ two previous campaigns.

C. Boyden Gray,Society board member and former counsel to President George H.W. Bush, ran incendiary ads pressuring Collins and other Senators to confirm conservative nominee William Pryor, Jr. Collins was one of two Republican senators to vote Pryor down — among her earliest pro-choice bona fides. Gray reportedly gave Collins $3,600 in 2014, but contributed nearly $8,000 to since her Kavanaugh vote.

But it was also Collins’ pivotal vote Kavanaugh — combined with her votes on Obamacare and impeachment — which appears to have spurred progressive activists to raise more than $4 million to unseat her. This took place before her chief Democratic opponent, Maine Speaker of the House Sara Gideon, declared her candidacy.

Though Collins has raised $10.3 million over the same period of time, Gideon has significantly outpaced her, hauling in $14.8 million.

“Bribery doesn’t work on Senator Collins,” Kevin Kelley, a Collins campaign spokesperson, claimed to The Beast. “She made up her mind based on the merits of [Kavanaugh’s] nomination. It’s laughable that the same people who tried to buy Senator Collins’ vote for more than $4 million now appear to be suggesting that she sold her vote for far less.”

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https://www.opensecrets.org/news/tag/bernard-marcus/

https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2019/05/interests-pushing-for-hard-line-against-iran

Tensions between the United States and Iran have skyrocketed in recent weeks following American military movements in the Persian Gulf and resumed uranium production by Iran. Decades of animosity worsened by the collapse of the 2015 nuclear deal have sparked a major standoff, as both nations review strategy while denying any desire for war. Experts fear that an error on either side could spark a regional maelstrom that would dwarf the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq in scope and lethality.

But while many members of Congress are seeking a way to prevent the potential conflict, others are pressuring the administration to maintain its aggressive stance. In a recent interview with PBS, Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) said the U.S. could end a potential war with Iran in two strikes, “the first strike and the last strike.” While he said he doesn’t want to go to war, he insisted that the U.S. would retaliate massively if provoked. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) demanded Monday that the U.S. “respond militarily and in an overwhelming fashion” if Iranian forces or proxies harm the United States or its allies in the region.

There may be more than genuine concern behind such aggressive stances towards Iran. Dozens of government officials, from Congress to the White House, have received financial support from an expansive network of interest groups, political action committees, foreign lobbyists and wealthy donors pushing for the hardest line possible against Iran.

At the heart of the rising hostility is National Security Advisor John Bolton, known throughout the political world for his hawkish foreign policy views and support for intervention in North Korea, Venezuela, Syria, Cuba and Iran. Rising to prominence during George W. Bush’s administration as the State Department’s undersecretary for arms control, Bolton has been a central figure in provoking the conflict between the U.S. and Iran. He recently sparked fears of war by suggesting that Iranian leaders wouldn’t “have many anniversaries left to enjoy” in a video posted by the White House and personally ordered updates to military plans that would send over 120,000 troops to the Middle East.

Bolton’s PAC and super PAC serve as the central financial mechanism of the wide-ranging influence network.Founded by Bolton in 2013, these groups quickly began to attract prominent megadonors who shared his aggressive view of foreign policy and his apprehension towards Iran. Over a five-year period up until when Bolton took office in 2018, the groups raked in more than $24 million in contributions, the vast majority of which came from a handful of large backers aligned against the Obama administration’s efforts to seek a diplomatic solution with Iran.

Chief among Bolton’s backers is Robert Mercer, the reclusive billionaire who was Donald Trump’s top donor in the 2016 presidential election. Over the course of the 2014, 2016, and 2018 election cycles, Mercer donated $5 million to The John Bolton Super PAC, a quarter of the super PAC’s lifetime receipts and one-sixth of Bolton’s combined contributions from both groups. OpenSecrets previously reported that Mercer was a primary funder of a secretive nonprofit that targeted swing voters with three disturbing anti-Muslim videos during the 2016 election.

Another prominent supporter is Bernie Marcus, co-founder of Home Depotand ardent critic of nuclear diplomacy with Iran. Marcus donated $530,000 to Bolton’s super PAC over its lifetime. Marcus has publicly scoffed at the prospect of conducting diplomacy with Iran, saying in a with Fox Business*, “When you do business with the devil, you’re in deep trouble, and I think Iran is the devil.”

He also notably donated $3.5 million to the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), a Washington think tank that has decried the Iran nuclear deal and submitted a memo to the Trump White House in 2017 outlining ways to stoke domestic unrest in Iran with the ultimate goal of regime change. The FDD’s suspected close ties with the Trump administration were further confirmed when Bolton selected a senior adviser at the organization to be his assistant in January 2019.

Bolton’s connections to hardliners don’t end with the committees. Sheldon and Miriam Adelson, the top individual political contributors for the 2018 midterms and major Trump donors, personally lobbied the president to select Bolton as deputy secretary of state. While this effort ultimately failed, Bolton eventually joined the administration as national security advisor- that move came after Sheldon Adelson supported publicity campaigns against Trump’s first national security advisor, Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster, that claimed McMaster was anti-Israeli in an effort to open the position for Bolton. Adelson is also a prominent supporter of major anti-Iranian lobbying groups, having donated more than $1.04 million to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee since 2007 and $1.5 million to the FDD between 2008 and 2011.

Bolton and Adelson share strikingly similar beliefs:in 2013, Adelso that the U.S. drop an atomic bomb in the Iranian desert as a warning to the government to abandon its nuclear programs. In 2015, Bolton followed suit, writing an op-ed in The New York Times entitled “To Stop Iran’s Bomb, Bomb Iran”, in which he advocated for a pre-emptive strike on Iranian military facilities to stymie potential nuclear weapons development.

Also among Bolton’s financial backers is the Mojahedin-e Khalq (M.E.K.), an Iranian opposition group with a history of violence towards Iranians and Americans alike. Founded in 1965 by left-leaning Iranian students in opposition to the Shah, the group committed dozens of terrorist acts throughout the 1970s that killed thousands of Iranians and numerous American citizens.

Supporting Ayatollah Khomeini’s forces in the 1979 Iranian Revolution, the group quickly came to blows with the new government, conducting the 1981 bombing that killed Iranian president Mohammad Ali Rajai and prime minister Mohammad Javad Bahonar as well as six other senior officials. They fought alongside Saddam Hussein in the 1980 Iran-Iraq War and formed a close alliancewith the dictator over the next two decades, killing thousand of Iranian soldiers in combat and launching brutal campaigns of repression against the Kurdish people of northern Iraq.

The group was long-labeled a foreign terrorist organization by the U.S. government, with numerous Congressional transcripts showing the group was responsible for decades of terrorism. The group, whose philosophy is heavily influenced by Marxism and Islamism, has been described by many researchers as a cult, with women being forbidden to marry and all followers pledging near-fanatical support to the group’s leader, “Iran’s future president” Maryam Rajavi. The group’s goal has remained constant since its inception: overthrow the Iranian government.The M.E.K has dramatically expanded its presence in American policy spheres, attracting prominent political fans and spending millions on lucrative speaker fees to gain allies in Washington. The M.E.K.’s political arm, the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), led a multimillion-dollar influence campaign beginning in the latter half of the 2000s that lobbied dozens of congressmen to push the State Department to remove the group from its designated terrorist organizations list. Three of Washington’s top lobbying groups — DiGenova & Toensing, Akin Gump and DLA Piper — were paid over $1.5 million dollars in 2012 to lobby for the delisting and protection of the group’s members in Iraq. The effort was ultimately successful, as then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton removed the M.E.K from the list in 2012.

Their lucrative speaking deals have attracted some of the biggest names in American politics, among them former Secretary of Homeland Security Tom Ridge, former FBI director Louis Freeh, and former Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security Robert Joseph.

The M.E.K’s influence extends to many members of the current government. Secretary of Transportation Elaine Chao was paid $50,000 to give a five-minute speech to a meeting of the NCRI in 2015. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich spoke at the group’s 2016 gala in Paris, commending the group’s dedication and promising to tell the Trump campaign about their demands for regime change in Iran.

But Bolton has always been the star of the show. Records show that the M.E.K has paid Bolton at least $180,000 in speaker fees to attend the group’s annual Paris conference for more than a decade. At the 2017 annual summit, Bolton that the president’s review of Iranian policy should conclude that the Ayatollah’s government shouldn’t survive into its fortieth year, promising the crowd in attendance that they would meet again in 2019 to celebrate their victory in Tehran.

The M.E.K is finding themselves welcomed by many on Capitol Hill who have been funded by Bolton’s political action committees and allies. Cotton, described by some as the loudest voice advocating for escalated conflict alongside Bolton, also received thousands of dollars in contributions from Sheldon Adelson and $5,000 from John Bolton PAC in 2014 and spoke at a 2015 event run by the Organization of Iranian American Communities, which is closely aligned with the M.E.K.

Cotton was joined there by Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), who, in addition to being backed by $1.37 million in independent expenditures from Bolton’s super PAC, journeyed to Albania in 2017 to meet with Rajavi and express admiration for the former terrorist group’s “struggle for democracy and human rights in Iran.” Joining him in Albania was Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.), current chairman of the Senate Republican Policy Committee and another Bolton beneficiary.

Overall, 28 sitting senators have received sizable contributions from John Bolton PAC during the election cycle, as have nine representatives on the House defense, foreign affairs, and homeland security subcommittees.

Feel free to distribute or cite this material, but please credit the Center for Responsive Politics.

For permission to reprint for commercial uses, such as textbooks, contact the Center: info@crp.org

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oct 2018

Many of the same wealthy donors who financially supported President Donald Trump in 2016 have spent millions so far this cycle.

Some of these individuals have spent more this year than they did on Trump in 2016. So far this cycle, the top 20 Trump donors have given, in total, $40.7 million to Republican candidates, committees, PACs and various outside spending groups.

One such wealthy individual is Bernard Marcus, co-founder of Home Depot. He and his wife, Billi Wilma, have donated $7.9 million, which is more than the $7 million they donated to Trump during the 2016 election. Marcus has given most of that money to outside money groups.

Ronald Cameron, CEO of the poultry company Mountaire Corp., spent $6.5 million on 2018, mostly on outside groups. During the 2016 election, Cameron gave Trump a total of $2 million.

Robert Mercer, the billionaire co-CEO of the hedge fund Renaissance Technologies, has donated $5.9 million so far, which went mostly to party and outside spending groups. This is a small figure compared to the $15.5 million he and his wife, Diana Mercer, gave Trump in 2016.

Andrew Beal, a Dallas banker, gave $6 million so far this year, and Geoff Palmer, a real estate developer, gave $4.3 million, both giving mainly to various outside spending groups. In 2016, Beal and Palmer spent $2.1 million and $5 million on Trump, respectively.

Another notable top donor is Peter Thiel, co-founder of PayPal, has so far given $1.3 million this cycle, mainly to outside spending groups. In 2016, Thiel gave a total of $1 million to the president’s campaign efforts.

Some of Trump’s big financial supporters in 2016 have not donated nearly as much this cycle as they did to his campaign two years ago. For example, Linda McMahon, administrator of the U.S. Small Business Administration, has only spent $5,400 so far in 2018. She gave Trump more than $6 million in 2016.

Stephen Feinberg, a billionaire hedge fund manager, gave Trump $1.4 million in 2016, and he has spent a total of $250 in 2018.

A number of the super PACs, committees and outside spending groups receiving funds from these top 20 donors have also financially supported Trump.

America First Action, a conservative super PAC, has received $8.1 million this cycle from Trump’s strongest financial supporters. In total for 2018, the super PAC raised $33.9 million.

A super PAC supporting Republican senators and candidates, Senate Leadership Fund, received $7.3 million from these 20 donors. So far this cycle, the super PAC has raised a total of $121.4 million.

Congressional Leadership Fund, a super PAC supporting Republican House candidates, received $4.2 million in donations from these wealthy individuals, a small fraction of its total donations of $143.5 million for 2018.

The Republican National Committee, the main fundraising arm for the Republican Party, collected $3.2 million so far from these donors in 2018. The committee received $409.5 million in total this cycle.

These donors collectively gave $3 million to Americans for Prosperity Action, the Koch Brothers’ super PAC. At this point in the 2018 cycle, the super PAC has raised $11.7 million.

Feel free to distribute or cite this material, but please credit the Center for Responsive Politics.

For permission to reprint for commercial uses, such as textbooks, contact the Center: info@crp.org

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==

Three liberal labor-connected super PACs took in more than $44.4 million in the third quarter of 2016, according to reports filed last weekend, while two others that are backing GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump drew in $30.3 million. The five were among the largest super PACs to file reports for the three-month period ending Sept. 30; some other major super PACs, including the pro-Hillary Clinton Priorities USA Action, file monthly reports, which are due in two days (Oct. 20).

A quick rundown:

For Our Future PAC

On the liberal side, For Our Future PAC, a super PAC formed earlier this year by environmentalist and former hedge fund manager Tom Steyer and four labor unions, brought in more than $30 million last quarter. A hefty chunk of that haul came from the unions, with the AFL-CIO, American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, the American Federation of Teachers and the National Education Association kicking in contributions of more than $1 million over the course of the cycle.

Steyer’s NextGen Climate Action super PAC gave $5.0 million.

And the group also came into some Silicon Valley money, with Facebook co-founder Dustin Moskovitz and his wife, journalist and philanthropist Cari Tuna, combining for $5 million in gifts.

For Our Future spent $3.8 million supporting or opposing a number of federal candidates between July and September, concentrating on battleground Senate and House races. But the group has saved its big artillery for the presidential race, dropping more than $3.3 million on pro-Clinton or anti-Trump expenditures.

United We Can PAC

United We Can PAC collected almost $9.8 million in the third quarter, with the majority coming from the Service Employees International Union; the union has given just under $7.8 million to the super PAC this year. NextGen Climate Action Fund chipped in another $1.05 million in the three-month period, while Planned Parenthood Votes donated $334,416, with both giving in-kind staff salaries and benefits.

As with For Our Future, United We Can has focused its independent expenditures on a variety of close federal races around the country, but it has invested most heavily in the presidential contest. In the year-to-date, the PAC has made about $10.8 million worth of independent expenditures backing Clinton and opposing Trump; much of that has been spent on voter canvassing and literature.

Working America Coalition

Working America, the AFL-CIO’s political advocacy and independent expenditure affiliate, also raised and spent significantly in the third quarter. The super PAC took in over $4.6 million during the period, much of it coming from the AFL-CIO and related unions in the form of in-kind staff time and services.

Working America fell into the pro-Clinton, anti-Trump camp, spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on fliers, direct mail and other efforts. The super PAC has also spent considerable resources on battleground congressional races.

Future45

Republican fundraising heavyweights Sheldon and Miriam Adelson, whose large checks to outside groups have buoyed GOP campaigns for years, gave $10 million to Future45 — controlled by the ultra-wealthy Republican donors Todd and Joe Ricketts — in the third quarter, good for most of the $12.3 million the organization received.

The PAC sits on $9.9 million in cash to spend down the stretch. So far, Future45 has spent just over $3.3 million on anti-Clinton independent expenditures; it hasn’t been involved in any House or Senate contests.

Rebuilding America Now

Devoted solely to helping elect Trump, Rebuilding America Now, founded by investor and Trump backer Tom Barrack, collected almost $18 million last quarter, largely from a handful of high-dollar contributions. Former wrestling executive Linda McMahonkicked in $6 million of that sum, despite having previously called Trump “deplorable”; that was a fraction of the nearly $50 million of her own money she spent trying to win a Senate seat in 2010 and 2012. Home Depot co-founder Bernard Marcuswas good for another $5 million and the super PAC also saw seven-figure donations from businessmen Ronald Cameron, Peter Zieve and Walter Buckley, Jr.

So far, the super PAC has spent about $17 million praising Trump or attacking Clinton — about three times as much on the latter than the former.

Feel free to distribute or cite this material, but please credit the Center for Responsive Politics.

For permission to reprint for commercial uses, such as textbooks, contact the Center: info@crp.org

RELATED TOPICS

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