Adelson, $

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SEE THREE MIRIAM AND BAK

CUFI

NO MERRI

PLUTO

IRAN WAR 3 26 WITH TOM COTTON AND LOOMER?!

aha RAGA, walker WI, koch

5/16 pledged to back trump bigtime

220 bak

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https://wareagle.substack.com/p/the-iran-war-exposes-the-farce-of

SUBSTACK

NO LNX

The Iran War Exposes the Farce of American “Representative Democracy”

J Richard Duke

Mar 03, 2026

The Iran War Exposes the Farce of American “Representative Democracy”

Ryan McMaken

“The Trump administration has unilaterally—without any Congressional debate or vote, of course—forced Americans into yet another war. This time, the war is a large-scale military campaign against Iran. Was there any groundswell of public support for this war? Did the Congress vote to spend more American tax dollars on another war? Apparently not. According to a March 1 poll from Reuters, only 27 percent of Americans polled said they support the US’s new war on Iran. Needless to say, few Americans have been calling their representatives in Congress asking for yet another Middle Eastern war.

:{:{So, why is the US now at war with Iran? Not even the administration appears to know for sure. After the war had already begun, the White House repeatedly changed its stated rationale for opening hostilities against Iran. At the beginning the US regime had been claiming it wanted regime change in Iran to “liberate” Iranians. Yet, by Monday, when Trump listed his reasons for starting the war, he didn’t mention regime change at all. Rather, the administration now seems to have settled on claims that the Iran regime was creating a missile program that, somehow, endangers the United States.}:

Yet, virtually no one believes that the Iranian regime has ever had long-range missiles capable of getting anywhere near US territory. Rather, the only “threat” to the United States is a threat to US bases which the US government has insisted on building 10,000 miles from US territory, and which have nothing to do with the safety of Americans in the United States.}:

On Monday, Rubio said that the United States began the war because the State of Israel planned to attack Iran, and that this would lead to Iranian reprisals against US bases. Rubio was essentially stating that Tel Aviv forced the US into the war. Trump today directly contradicted his Secretary of State—as well as the GOP Speaker of the House and GOP Senator Tom Cotton—and claimed “I might’ve forced their hand.”

Completely absent from all these confused and retroactive attempts to justify the war is any mention of the American people, their tax dollars, their freedoms, or even their alleged representatives in Congress. Nor is this surprising. The current war is a timely reminder that the US ruling elites regard the US taxpayers and ordinary Americans as little more than inconvenient afterthoughts in the formation of US foreign policy. At the same time, the US regime also claims to have the moral high ground precisely because the American regime is supposedly “democratic” with the support of “the people.”

Indeed, the Trump administration overall has helped make it abundantly clear that US elections and public opinion are almost completely irrelevant to the foreign policy. Throughout his campaigns, Donald Trump repeatedly claimed to be the peace candidate, announcing in his speeches that he would end wars, rather than start them. In the days before the 2024 election, the GOP posted this image in social media, clearly presenting the Trump administration as “the pro-peace ticket”:

Yet, less than a year into his second term, Donald Trump’s foreign policy looks largely indistinguishable from that of the foreign policy of Barack Obama or Joe Biden. Indeed, if the current war drags on, we’ll be able to say Trump’s foreign policy is reminiscent of the George W. Bush administration.

It was clear during the campaign that the Trump ticket was trying to take advantage of public sentiment which favored less US involvement in foreign wars. With American foreign policy, however, elections don’t matter. This was recently emphasized by the bumbling US ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, in a recent interview with Tucker Carlson. Carlson began with a simple question for Huckabee:

Carlson: How much does it matter what Americans think?

Huckabee: Well, it matters every bit what Americans think.

[Huckabee is a delusional liar. - JRD]

Carlson then points out that about 21% of Americans support war with Iran. He asks Huckabee if that’s enough for the US regime to start a war with Iran. Huckabee states “We don’t live in a world where you have a poll taken to find out whether our policy should be in a particular direction...”

Carlson then points out that Huckabee had just said public opinion matters a lot and Huckabee says “we care deeply about it...”

[Huckabee is a liar. - JRD]

Carlson: “If we’re ignoring it, in what sense to we ‘care deeply about it?’”

Huckabee then offers a non sequitur: “I think we care deeply when we see there’s a threat.” Huckabee then continued with more word salad in a desperate attempt to make a connection between public opinion and his preferred policy of repeatedly starting elective wars with Middle Eastern regimes that are no threat to the US population.

[Huckabee, the Ambassador to Israel, is a former pastor who does NOT understand the Bible and is puts Israel first and American somewhere below. - JRD]

The reality, of course, is closer to Rubio’s explanation for the US’s involvement in the war: following the lead of the State of Israel.

This is apparently fine with Ambassador Huckabee, of course, who in his Carlson interview, was asked if Huckabee thinks the State of Israel has a “right” to take over most of the Middle East. Carslon stated: ”Does Israel have the right to that land?” Huckabee responded ”It would be fine if they took it all.”

And what if most Americans don’t share this opinion? Clearly, the US regime doesn’t care, and neither does Huckabee, or Donald Trump.

In spite of all the US regime’s posturing about “the will of the people” and “representation” in Congress, what really matters in Washington is serving powerful interest groups. The taxpaying public simply exists as a resource to be bled dry in favor of wars, protectionism, and federal spending which serves the ruling elite’s complex system of patrons and clients that keeps the elite in power.

When it comes to US foreign policy in the middle east, the dominant interest group is the State of Israel. This is executed through the American-Israeli Political Action Committee (AIPAC) and other elements of what foreign-policy scholars John Mearsheimer and Stephen walt call “the Israel lobby.” When Mearsheimer and Walt released their book The Israel Lobby in 2007, they were predictably accused of anti-semitism. Yet, the book was ahead of its time in describing how pro-Israel interest groups have been extremely successful in gaining financial, military, and strategic favors for Israel from US policymakers. It has all been done at the expense of American taxpayers. The result has been an American foreign policy elite that overwhelmingly favors incessant foreign intervention to favor a foreign state—the State of Israel—regardless of any concern for the cost borne by Americans or the potential for drawing the US into broader conflicts that do not in any way increase the security of the United States.

In 2007, The Israel Lobby seemed controversial to many. In 2026, it is merely a statement of the obvious—that US foreign policy is tailored to favor certain interest group, rather than the interests of ordinary voters. This, however, is how all interest group politics works. The voting public doesn’t matter, and it hasn’t mattered for a long time.

This is shown in empirical studies that have tried to find a connection between public opinion and actual policies favored in Washington. The connection is tenuous at best.

For example, in a 2014 study by Martin Gilens and Benajmin Page, the authors note that when it comes to “impacts on U.S. government policy ... average citizens and mass-based interest groups have little or no independent influence.” Gilens and Page note that “the preferences of economic elites ... have far more independent impact upon policy change than the preferences of average citizens do.”

This can be seen in Trump’s own fundraising given how one of his biggest donors, billionaire Miriam Adelson, is notable for an extreme pro-Israel position. This is, not surprisingly, reflected in Trump’s foreign policy.

The final conclusions of Gilens and Page are clear:

In the United States, our findings indicate, the majority does not rule—at least not in the causal sense of actually determining policy outcomes. When a majority of citizens disagrees with economic elites or with organized interests, they generally lose. Moreover, because of the strong status quo bias built into the U.S. political system, even when fairly large majorities of Americans favor policy change, they generally do not get it.

Perhaps no group of “economic elites” is more influential in foreign policy than those who control campaign funds distributed through pro-Israel interest groups like AIPAC, or through the spending of wealthy individuals like Adelson.

Other studies have come to similar conclusions. For example, in a 2017 paper on voter preferences, John Matsusake concluded that legislator preferences don’t correlate with voter preferences:

[W]hen legislator preferences differed from district opinion on an issue, legislators voted congruent with district opinion only 29 percent of the time. The data do not show a reliable connection between congruence and competitive election, term limits, campaign contributions, or media attention. The evidence is most consistent with the assumption of a citizen-candidate model that legislators vote their own preferences.

There is, of course, no such thing as a “district opinion,” but the general idea is clear enough: if a legislator’s campaign war chest depends on pleasing a specific interest group, then the preferences of the voters don’t really matter.

Similarly, in a 2016 study from Michael Barber, he writes on how votes in the US Senate bear little relation to public opinion: “[S]enators’ preferences diverge dramatically from the preference of the average voter in their state. The degree of divergence is nearly as large as if voters were randomly assigned to a senator.”

So, if policymakers are largely independent of the voters who the policymakers ostensibly “represent,” then what determines federal policy?

The current war is just the latest reminder that pluralism is wrong and elite theory is right. There is no “we the people.” There is no “representative democracy.” And, when it comes to the big stuff like war, federal spending, and the central bank, elections don’t matter. It’s why, no matter who gets elected, US foreign policy proceeds more or less as usual, year after year after year.

This is why it doesn’t matter that only about one in four Americans is interested in being on the hook for yet another Middle Eastern war with no apparent benefits for any average American. This is why the administration continues to engage in shifting claims about the origins of this conflict. The administration knows that claims about Iran being a threat to the American people are not tenable, and are on the same level as claims about Iraqi WMDs. Nor can the regime just come right out at say “our pro-Israel funders told us to fight Iran.” So, we have Rubio telling us the war was a “preemptive strike” against the potential blowback from US-funded Israeli strikes on Iran. This explanation is already falling apart, which is why Trump now denies it.

In the end, the regime doesn’t even really need to come up with a plausible explanation. The political fallout will settle largely on the current administration, and this will have little effect on the real governing elite which remains in control regardless which party is ostensibly “in power.”

Open link

SEE:

Why Parts of MAGA Feel ABANDONED After Trump Goes to War with Iran, with Marjorie Taylor Greene

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hypocrisy

Former Associated Press reporter Emily Wilder was fired from the international media company late Thursday following a pressure campaign by right-wing media, including publications such as The Federalist and The Washington Free Beacon working in tandem with the Standford College Republicans. Wilder was "canceled," if you will, for pro-Palestinian activism during her years in college — not at the AP.

The campaign to have Wilder fired started on Monday with the Stanford College Republicans taking to Twitter to bill the reporter's past pro-Palestine demonstrating as controversial, coming to the verdict that she would never be able to be impartial while covering national news.[twt pix]

"Recently, we discovered that theAssociated Press has hired former Stanford anti-Israel agitator, Emily Wilder, who referred to the late Sheldon Adelson as a 'naked mole rat' as one of their 'journalists,'" the college Republican organization tweeted. The series of tweets from the Standford Republican chapter went onto claim that the reporter, who is Jewish, during her college years belonged to a "Students for Justice in Palestine," on-campus group. The college Republicans — who appear to have their own questionable Twitter activity — also took offense to Wilder calling right-wing provocateur Ben Shapiro a "little turd" and Sheldon Adelson a "naked mole-rat."

From there, the right-wing outrage machine got ahold of the story, including The Federalist, The Washington Free Beacon, and Fox News, which billed the reporter as being "anti-Israel." Notably, the Free Beacon ran their hit-piece with no attached byline and didn't return Salon's request for comment as to why.

On Thursday, an all-staff email from AP News director Peter Prengaman to employees read: "A note to say that news associate Emily Wilder is no longer with the AP[twt pix]

but the Associated Press claims it wasn't her activism in college. "While AP generally refrains from commenting on personnel matters, we can confirm Emily Wilder's comments on Thursday thatshe was dismissed for violations of AP's social media policy during her time at AP," an AP spokesperson told The Wrap.

"Amazing how quickly a talented young reporter's career can be snuffed out by a Twitter mob that decided to feign outrage over some college tweets. And if @vv1lder somehow violated @AP's social media rules, the solution is to offer guidance, not termination, to a new reporter," TheWashington Post's Glenn Kesslerwrote on Twitter following the ouster.

[twt pix] responding to her firing, Wilder told SFGATE that her firing was nothing more than a right-wing outrage mob that reportedly disdains "cancel culture," doing what they claim to resent.

"There's no question I was just canceled," told SFGATE reporter Eric Ting on Thursday following the news of her firing. "This is exactly the issue with the rhetoric around 'cancel culture.' To Republicans, cancel culture is usually seen as teens or young people online advocating that people be held accountable over accusations of racism or whatever it may be, but when it comes down to who actually has to deal with the lifelong ramifications of the selective enforcement of cancel culture — specifically over the issue of Israel and Palestine — it's always the same side."

in her interview with SFGATE, Wilder noted an "onslaught of absolutely vile messages" she received after right-wing media began running with the story. Wilder didn't immediately return a request for comment from Salon.

While The Associated Press might have folded to the demands of the right-wing mob, many journalists on Twitter voiced their support for the young journalist. "Shame on @AP @peterprengaman. I stand with Emily. Her reporting at our newspaper was excellent. Reverse your decision NOW," The Arizona Republic's reporter Rebekah Sanders wrote. The Washington Post's Dave Weigel responded: "'Hire @vv1lder' is something more and more people are saying."

"Every journalist should be outraged about @AP firing [Wilder] over college activism in favor of freedom for Palestinians. The industry is rife with clear double-standards on this," Los Angeles Times investigative reporter Adam Elmahrek commented on the firing. The Daily Beast's senior politics reporter Will Sommer replied, "It's crazy that editors are still falling for these bad-faith campaigns from right-wing media."

The decision to out Wilder comes on the heels ofright-wing pundits cheering the Israeli airstrike that leveled a building in Gaza on Saturday, housing several international news outlets, including The Associated Press.

FROM YOUR SITE ARTICLES

https://www.alternet.org/2020/09/did-donald-trump-help-an-anti-corruption-probe-in-guatemala-to-aid-his-re-election-bid/

This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The Quarantine Report. I’m Amy Goodman. “How Donald Trump took down the Robert Mueller of Latin America.” That’s the headline of a new investigation by Reveal at The Center for Investigative Reporting and in The Daily Beast that looks at how the Trump administration aided Guatemala’s right-wing government to kill a powerful anti-corruption commission.

The story centers on Iván Velásquez, a Colombian prosecutor who headed the International Commission Against Impunity in Guatemala, known as CICIG, from 2013 to ’19. A leading backer of the commission in the United States was former Vice President Joe Biden. After leaving office, Biden wrote, quote, “I made it clear that U.S. funding for Guatemala hinged on CICIG being allowed to continue its work."

but the Trump administration took the opposite approach and agreed to withdraw support for the commission in apparent exchange for Guatemala’s support of Trump’s immigration and Middle East policies. In 2018, Guatemala moved its embassy in Israel to Jerusalem just after the United States did. A year later, Guatemala’s then-president,the former comedian Jimmy Morales, agreed to make Guatemala a “safe third country,” quote-unquote, for migrants seeking asylum in the U.S. The agreement requires asylum seekers who journey through Guatemala en route to the United States to apply for asylum in Guatemala instead of at the U.S.-Mexico border.

On August 31st, 2018, Guatemalan President Morales announced he was shutting down the anti-corruption commission, which had begun investigating Morales himself, his son and his family. Morales was flanked by 50 military officers. Soon tanks and jeeps with mounted artillery, provided by the United States, circled around the office of the commission.

Reporters Aaron Glantz and Anayansi Diaz-Cortes write, quote, “All of this shook Guatemalan society to the bone — a dark reminder of the civil war and military rule,” unquote. Before it was disbanded, CICIG have prosecuted over 100 cases, including one against former Guatemalan President Otto Pérez Molina, who was forced to resign in 2015 after months of massive protests and remains in jail.

Well, Aaron Glantz and Anayansi Diaz-Cortes both join us to talk about their reporting for Reveal and the report in The Daily Beast.

Aaron, why don’t you talk about the significance of releasing this now? I mean, this is a story that involves President Trump, that involves Vice President Pence, that involves Sheldon Adelson, the big Republican donor, in connections to Israel, that involves Colombia itself. Iván Velásquez is a crusading human rights prosecutor, who was attempting to do this work in Guatemala.

AARON GLANTZ: Iván Velásquez, who is the person who blew the whistle to us, had taken down presidents and paramilitaries in Guatemala and in Colombia. And he was known as the Robert Mueller of Latin America. He was brought to Guatemala in 2013 — as you mentioned, he had the strong support of Vice President Joe Biden — with the idea that if tens of thousands of unaccompanied minors are arriving at the U.S. border every year, that it’s in the U.S. interest to improve conditions in Guatemala by lessening the amount of corruption and impunity in that country. And so, as you mentioned, Iván Velásquez, shortly after he arrives in Guatemala, he throws the president, Otto Pérez Molina, a former member of the ruling military junta from earlier, in prison for running a customs ring at the airport, his involvement in that.

But, as you mentioned, then Donald Trump comes in office. And we see an entirely different dynamic take place, where these two former television stars, Donald Trump and Jimmy Morales, both with a documented history of racism, band together to kill this anti-corruption force and save themselves.

AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to go to Iván Velásquez himself, the head of CICIG, talking about what happened.

IVÁN VELÁSQUEZ: [translated] President Jimmy Morales tells President Trump, “I understand what you’re going through. You are being persecuted by Robert Mueller in the States. I am being persecuted by Iván Velásquez in Guatemala. I know how much you’ve suffered through all this.” When Ambassador Nikki Haley visits Guatemala, it is an explicit show of support for Morales. She has a series of complaints for me: stop doing press conferences, anonymity. That is what is expected of my role at CICIG. It’s a transaction where both parties seem to win something: You help us by ending this persecution unleashed by the CICIG, and we will help you. And how do you shut down CICIG? By cutting the funds. And that is exactly what happened.

AMY GOODMAN: So, I want to go toMarch 2018, when then-U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Nikki Haley spoke to AIPAC, the policy conference in Washington, D.C., and thanked Guatemala for supporting the Trump administration’s decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.

NIKKI HALEY: Last week I took a trip to Guatemala and Honduras. And I thanked them both for voting with us. God bless Guatemala. They’ve even joined us in moving their embassy to Jerusalem.

AMY GOODMAN: So, Anayansi Diaz-Cortes, if you could talk more about this? Then you have Sheldon Adelson chartering a private plane for Morales and the leadership of Guatemala to go to Jerusalem, when the U.S. was recognizing their moved embassy to Jerusalem. How this is all a part of this story?

ANAYANSI DIAZ-CORTES: Well, I think the important thing to remember, Amy, is that this commission was basically set up to do kind of the hard labor, the boring labor, of institution building, after decades of civil war and U.S. involvement in supporting military dictatorships here.

So, you know, when we look at Biden’s support of the CICIG and the contrast to what begins to happen once Velásquez starts going after Jimmy Morales for corruption, then you see lobbying on the part of, you know, Guatemala sending signals to the U.S. to then support the United States in moving the Guatemalan Embassy to Jerusalem as a way to tell Trump, “I understand your suffering. You have Robert Mueller” — like he said, “You have Robert Mueller in the United States. I have Iván Velásquez here. Get the CICIG out of my hair, in exchange for a pliant immigration policy in Guatemala.”

And we see how that timeline takes place, first withNikki Haley visiting Guatemala and telling Iván Velásquez, “Tone it down. Stop it with the ‘I heart CICIG’ bumper stickers. Don’t hold press conferences.” And then, kind of days later, she is at AIPAC — with Jimmy Morales there, as well — announcing this, and that leads to a slow demise, over the year, of the CICIG.

It’s also important to just acknowledge that in order for CICIG to work, CICIG can make recommendations based on what they believe should happen, but really it is the attorney general and the Guatemalan Congress who implement these recommendations. So, at some point, Morales, you know, Thelma Aldana, who was the attorney general then, and Velásquez were a dream team. They were kind of working together. The moment that Velásquez goes under Morales’s family, that then changes, right? Morales refuses to stand before a judge, and Velásquez doesn’t back down.

AMY GOODMAN: And Thelma Aldana — people can go to our website at democracynow.org to see our interview with the former Guatemalan attorney general, who then Morales goes after and indicts. And this weekend, Interpol said they’re not going to honor any arrest warrant for her.

ANAYANSI DIAZ-CORTES: That’s correct, Amy. That is correct. And we don’t get into that story in our radio story because there’s so much to get into, but her leaving Guatemala was like a key moment, where suddenly you have the attorney general that Velásquez was working so closely with is no more, as well. So, he’s slowly isolated. And once the U.S. support is taken away, well, CICIG is basically left not only without teeth, but without substance.

AMY GOODMAN: So, if you can wrap this up, Aaron Glantz, and talk about what came of this, what this means that you had Morales surrounded by military tanks, a number provided by the United States, announcing CICIG was being dissolved and Iván Velásquez was being thrown out?

AARON GLANTZ: Well, as you said in your intro and we say in our piece, it was a dark reminder of the days when Guatemala had previously been ruled by U.S.-backed military juntas. And the whole purpose of this international anti-corruption force was to help turn the page and move towards a more just society.

And that was visually — you know, all those military members, the U.S.-provided military vehicles in the streets sent a clear message. When Velásquez leaves the country to attend U.N. meetings in the U.S., he tries to get back in, they won’t let him in. And they send his belongings to Colombia, which is where he’s from, and it’s where Anayansi and I went earlier this year to interview him and get his story.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, we want to thank you so much for being with us. We’re going to link to your story in The Daily Beast at democracynow.org, Aaron Glantz and Anayansi Diaz-Cortes with Reveal from The Center for Investigative Reporting, the piece called “How Donald Trump took down the Robert Mueller of Latin America.”

Finally, Sheldon and Miriam Adelson’s financial support for UANI closely tracks the Republican megadonors’ hawkish views toward Iran.In 2013, Sheldon :{Adelson:(style="background-color:#ffcc66;"):}: told an audience at Yeshiva University that Obama should launch a nuclear strike on Iran and threaten that Iran will be “wiped out” if it doesn’t dismantle its nuclear program. The Adelsons were Trump’s biggest funders in the 2016 election and the GOP’s biggest funders in the 2018 cycle. They areexpected to contribute at least $100 million to Trump’s reelection efforts and Republican congressional candidates in the 2020 cycle.

pow

https://theintercept.com/2020/03/05/iran-coronavirus-medicine-sanctions/

DESPITE A MASSIVE coronavirus-related public health crisis, an anti-Iran pressure group with close ties to the Trump administration is urging major pharmaceutical companies to “end their Iran business,” focusing on companies with special licenses — most often under a broadly defined “humanitarian exemption” — to conduct trade with Iran.

With a novel strain of coronavirus rapidly spreading around the world, Iran has been hit particularly hard, with 107 deaths and 3,515 infections recorded so far. Yet the pressure group, United Against Nuclear Iran, is carrying on with its campaign targeting medical trade with Iran despite the Trump administration’sspecial financial channels for humanitarian goods and medicine to reach the beleaguered country.

“U.S. sanctions have had a long-term impact on Iran’s ability to freely import medical supplies,” said Tyler Cullis, an attorney specializing in sanctions law at Ferrari & Associates. He pointed to “outside groups” that seek to bolster the Treasury Department’s investigatory heft and provide information on companies doing trade with Iran. “In tandem with U.S. sanctions,” Cullis said, “these groups have sought to impose reputational costs on companies that engage in lawful and legitimate trade with Iran, including humanitarian trade.”

:{

“These groups have sought to impose reputational costs on companies that engage in lawful and legitimate trade with Iran, including humanitarian trade.”

}:

The medical and humanitarian trade are carved out of crippling sanctions against Iran through special licenses issued by the Treasury Department. But companies must apply for the licenses then carry out the trade — something United Against Nuclear Iran, known as UANI, seeks to discourage.

“Their efforts are not insignificant,” Cullis said. “It is, after all, not an altogether lucrative enterprise selling medical supplies to Iran, so the name-and-shame operations of outside groups have a significant impact on the cost-benefit analysis associated with doing business with Iran.”

Joshua Silberberg, a spokesperson for UANI, declined to respond to questions about the group’s effort to name and shame companies doing medical trade with Iran. “UANI has a long history of expressing support and solidarity with the Iranian people,” he said, pointing to a statement applauding the finalization of the Swiss Humanitarian Trade Arrangement, an agreement arranged by the U.S. and Swiss governments.

UANI says it aims to persuade “the regime in Tehran to desist from its quest for nuclear weapons, while striving not to punish the Iranian people.” (The U.S. intelligence community does not believe that Iran has any desire or plans to build nuclear weapons.) UANI’s efforts, however, have extended beyond sanctions into pressuring companies that do legal trade with Iran, often under the Treasury Department’s humanitarian exemptions to sanctions — including medical-related trades that would presumably aid in combating a massive public health crisis like this coronavirus outbreak.

UANI operates an “Iran Business Registry” that provides an online database of companies it believes are conducting business in or with Iran — a name-and-shame strategy to increase Iran’s economic isolation. The pressure campaign has targeted multiple medical companies with Treasury Department licenses to conduct trade with Iran. Nine pharmaceutical, biotechnology, and medical-device corporations, all with special licenses, are listed on UANI’s business registry. Companies urged by UANI to “end their Iran business” include Bayer, Merck, Pfizer, Genzyme, AirSep, Medrad, Becton, Dickinson & Company, Eli Lilly, and Abbott Laboratories.

The legal channels for humanitarian trade are widely reported to be failing to provide a sufficient flow of medicine and other humanitarian goods.

UANI’S EFFORTS ARE particularly notable in light of the group’s close ties to the Trump administration; Iran’s regional adversaries Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Israel; and the Republican Party’s biggest donors, Sheldon and Miriam Adelson.

Senior UANI adviser John Bolton worked for UANI both before and after his stint in the Trump administration as national security adviser. UANI’s umbrella group, Counter Extremism Project United Inc, paid Bolton $240,000 between 2016 and 2017.Bolton’s appointment as national security adviser was quickly followed by Trump’s withdrawal from the nuclear deal with Iran.

Besides Bolton, the Trump administration twice sent Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to UANI’s annual conference, held during the United Nations General Assembly. Pompeo used the occasions to promote outlandish claims about Europe purportedly financing Iranian terrorism and to present the administration’s “maximum pressure” strategy to UANI’s audience, which included senior diplomats and intelligence officials from the Persian Gulf and Israel.

The group’s last summit, held in September, featuredU.S. Ambassador to Germany Richard Grenell, who is now Trump’s acting director of national intelligence, as well as a who’s who of the Trump administration’s hawkish Middle East partners, including top diplomats from Persian Gulf monarchies and Israel. (UANI and its affiliated organizations have a number of links to Gulf monarchies, including a 2014 email from a UANI advisory board member soliciting “support” from the United Arab Emirates.)

UANI’s top funder, billionaire Thomas Kaplan — an investor whose companies have looked to profit from “political unrest” in the Middle East — was also in attendance at the summit.

Finally, Sheldon and Miriam Adelson’s financial support for UANI closely tracks the Republican megadonors’ hawkish views toward Iran.In 2013, Sheldon Adelson told an audience at Yeshiva University that Obama should launch a nuclear strike on Iran and threaten that Iran will be “wiped out” if it doesn’t dismantle its nuclear program. The Adelsons were Trump’s biggest funders in the 2016 election and the GOP’s biggest funders in the 2018 cycle. They areexpected to contribute at least $100 million to Trump’s reelection efforts and Republican congressional candidates in the 2020 cycle.

While the Trump administration’s extreme financial pressure against Iran is coinciding with the coronavirus outbreak, Tyler Cullis, the sanctions lawyer, was careful to note that issues with ensuring a robust trade of medical and humanitarian supplies to Iran began under previous administrations. “While those problems have been exacerbated under the Trump administration,” Cullis said, “their origination takes place more than a decade ago when prior administrations first started imposing enormous sanctions pressure on Iran’s financial sector.”

Miriam Adelson (née Farbstein; formerly Ochshorn; born 10 October 1945) is an Israeli American philanthropist and doctor. She married American business magnate Sheldon Adelson in 1991, and has since become a prominent Republican Party donor. She is the current publisher of the Israel Hayom newspaper.^[1][2][3] Miriam and Sheldon Adelson were presented with the Woodrow Wilson Award for Corporate Citizenship by the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars of the Smithsonian Institution in 2008.^[4] In 2013, she received honorary citizenship of Jerusalem.^[5]

Life and work

Adelson was born in Tel Aviv,^[6] Mandatory Palestine in 1945, to parents who fled Poland before the Holocaust. Her father was a prominent member of the Mapam political party. In the 1950s, her family settled in the city of Haifa,^[6] where Adelson's father owned and operated several movie theaters. She attended the Hebrew Reali School for 12 years.^[7] She served mandatory army service as a medical officer at Ness Ziona. After earning a Bachelor of Science in Microbiology and Genetics from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and a medical degree from Tel Aviv University's Sackler Medical School, she went on to become the chief internist in an emergency room at Tel Aviv's Rokach (Hadassah) Hospital. Adelson then married Ariel Ochshorn, a physician, with whom she had two children.^[1][8][9]

Adelson divorced Ochshorn in the 1980s, and in 1986 she went to Rockefeller University on an exchange program, specializing in drug addiction. She was mentored by and collaborated with Mary Jeanne Kreek. While at Rockefeller, she met Sheldon Adelson, whom she married in 1991. In 1993, she founded a substance abuse center and research clinic there, and in 2000, the couple opened the Dr. Miriam and Sheldon G. Adelson Research Clinic in Las Vegas.^[1] A strong supporter of Israel, she admitted her heart has always been in that country and that she got "stuck" in America after meeting her husband,^[10] is credited with influencing Sheldon's political views on Israel,^[8] and served as one of the 'finance vice-chairs' for the inauguration of Donald Trump.^[11]

Dallas Republican donor Doug Deason and his billionaire father gave more than a million dollars to the pro-Trump America First PAC. Their generosity seems to have greased the pardon of David Safavian, a former federal official convicted of obstruction and perjury in the Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal.

Casino magnate Sheldon Adelson and his wife, Miriam Adelson, have given more than $200 million to Republican causes, including at least $30 million to Trump-related committees in recent years and $500,000 to a defense fund for Trump aides coping with special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe. They asked that Trump pardon junk-bond crook Michael Milken and got their wish. (Mrs. Adelson also got the Presidential Medal of Freedom.)

And then there’s the Pogue family, also from Dallas, which forked over $85,000 last year jointly to the president’s reelection committee and the Republican Party — and got a gift-wrapped pardon for its patriarch, Paul Pogue, a construction magnate convicted of tax fraud. Pushing thePogue pardon was former Sen. Rick Santorum,the Pennsylvania Republican who brayed loudly about the Rich case.

https://yyy.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/aug/22/sheldon-adelson-palestine-jew-haters-colleges-campuses

no lnx many

GOP mega-donor funds group calling pro-Palestine US students 'Jew haters'

Sheldon Adelson-funded group accused students and professors at a college campus of ‘allying themselves with Palestinian terrorists’

Sam Levin in San Francisco

@SamTLevin Email

Wed 24 Aug 2016 17.51 EDT First published on Mon 22 Aug 2016 17.45 EDT

This article is over 2 years old

Robert Gardner, a 25-year-old UCLA senior, saw his name on one of the posters outside a grocery market: ‘I was really shocked and felt really disturbed.’ Photograph: Courtesy of Robert Gardner]

Sheldon Adelson, the Nevada casino mogul and conservative mega-donor, is leading a campaign against pro-Palestine groups on US college campuses and has funded a group that has publicly accused individual students of supporting terrorism and promoting “Jew Hatred”.

The multimillion-dollar effort, which has launched at six campuses in California, is targeting the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement that has become increasingly popular among American university students protesting the Israeli government.

At the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), recent posters named 16 students and professors, saying they “have allied themselves with Palestinian terrorists to perpetuate BDS and Jew Hatred on this campus”. It further claimed BDS was a “Hamas-inspired genocidal campaign to destroy Israel”.

Robert Gardner, a 25-year-old UCLA senior, saw his name on one of the posters outside a grocery market. “I was really shocked and felt really disturbed,” he said.

“They are trying to cast us as antisemitic, that we are somehow a discriminatory group,” said the political science student, who is a member of the college’s Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) organization. “That is a completely spurious accusation. One of our core principles is anti-oppression and anti-racism.”

Tensions surrounding Israel-Palestine campus activism have escalated in recent years, but SJP leaders said the posters identifying specific students were particularly aggressive and had led some of them to face online harassment and death threats.

The UCLA poster accusing students and professors of ‘Jew Hatred’. Photograph: Handout]

Adelson – who has poured money into Republican campaigns and last year purchased Nevada’s largest newspaper, the Las Vegas Review-Journal – recently launched the so-called Maccabee Task Force to “combat the BDS Movement through education and meaningful conversation about Israel truths”.

The billionaire gambling magnate, who has reportedly supported Donald Trump, helped inject the conflict into the US presidential race.

While Adelson and his new task force have focused on building support for Israel through social media campaigns, partnerships with student groups and subsidized trips to Israel, the tactic of calling out students on public posters and linking them to terrorism has earned widespread condemnation.

“This definitely felt like a more direct escalation,” said Omar Zahzah, a 28-year-old graduate student at UCLA who was also named in the recent posters. “It wasn’t just slandering SJP anymore. It was attacking specific individuals.”

Zahzah, a comparative literature student, who is Palestinian, added: “It’s easy to joke about and dismiss. But at the end of the day, it’s still pretty intimidating, which is the point.”

The UCLA posters included the hashtag #StopTheJewHatredOnCampus and linked to the website of the David Horowitz Freedom Center, a conservative Los Angeles-based group that has repeatedly been accused of promoting Islamophobia.

David Brog, executive director of the Maccabee Task Force, said in a statement to the Guardian that the group had approved a “modest grant” to the Horowitz Freedom Center “to focus on the true nature of pro-BDS organizations, but we did not ask for or approve the poster campaign that targeted student activists, and were not aware that our money had been used to support it. It should not have been.

“The Maccabee Task Force does not believe that focusing on student activists who conduct themselves civilly is an appropriate or effective way to combat the BDS movement on campus,” Brog added.

A spokesman declined to disclose the size of the grant but said the Maccabee Task Force plans to expand to 20 additional college campuses this fall.

On Wednesday, two days after publication of this article, the Maccabee spokesman said that the Horowitz center has since confirmed that it did not use any funding from the Adelson group for its poster campaign, contradicting its earlier statement acknowledging that its money had gone toward the effort.

The Horowitz center and representatives for Adelson did not respond to inquiries on Monday. Horowitz, however, defended the posters in an interview with the Los Angeles Times and said he planned to produce similar ones at other campuses.

SJP and BDS activists have repeatedly argued that their efforts are not antisemitic and that they are simply calling for Israel to be boycotted due to its continued occupation of Palestinian territories.

In recent months, some Black Lives Matter activists have aligned themselves with pro-Palestine groups, which has intensified the campaigns against the BDS movement.

Robin Kelley, a UCLA history professor who was named on the Horowitz poster, said there were many Jewish students who support SJP. He also noted this was not the first time critics had gone after SJP students in a harassing and threatening manner.

Still, he said, for some of them, it was “devastating” and “traumatizing”.

“To try to destroy a young person’s life because you disagree with their politics is reprehensible,” said Kelley, who is a member of the advisory board for the US Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel. “It can affect their job prospects, their future … These kids don’t have the capacity to destroy Sheldon Adelson’s life.”

An earlier version of this story misspelled the name of David Brog

This article was amended on 24 August to clarify a new statement from the Maccabee group which now claims that the Horowitz center did not use any of the Maccabee funding for its campus posters

Trump to Award Medals of Freedom to Elvis, Babe Ruth and Miriam ...

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/16/us/.../presidential-medal-freedom-adelson.html

2 hours ago - President Trump will award Miriam Adelson the Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honor, on Friday. With her husband, Sheldon Adelson, ...

http://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/koch-and-adelson-come-to-the-rescue-of-trump-devotee-ron-desantis-in-florida/

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Charles Koch, the billionaire CEO of Koch Industries who leads a vast, conservative political network, has made a habit of pointing out his disagreements with President Donald Trump, but sometimes money speaks louder than words.

Despite Republican Ron DeSantis’ fawning praise of Trump, whose trade tariffs and immigration policies have made Koch bristle, Koch’s political network is spending big to help the current congressman and Florida gubernatorial candidate edge out Democratic nominee Andrew Gillum. The progressive policies championed by Gillum would surely increase environmental regulations and government spending, two initiatives that Koch and his network of wealthy rightwing donors viciously oppose.

Billionaire casino magnate Sheldon Adelson and his wife Miriam—the biggest donors to outside political spending groups of the 2018 election cycle—have put up big bucks to assist DeSantis as well.

A Sludge analysis of state campaign finance data shows that these two GOP royal families have poured millions of dollars into this tight gubernatorial contest. In addition to direct contributions to DeSantis’ political committees from Koch Industries and the Adelsons, three independent spending groups financed by Koch and his donor network have spent millions of dollars backing DeSantis.

Koch Industries, which operates a global oil, chemicals and materials conglomerate, has several facilities in Florida, including for its paper company, Georgia-Pacific, and its synthetic materials business, Molex. Georgia-Pacific has been fined for dozens of environmental and workplace safety/health violations, as recently as 2017, and Molex was cited in 2012 for workplace safety/health violations, according to Good Jobs First. Overall, Koch Industries has had to pay $737 million for federal and state violations.

In the early 2000s, according to American Bridge, Koch Industries used the Koch political network’s ties to then-Gov. Jeb Bush to loosen environmental regulations just as Koch Industries purchased Georgia-Pacific, which operates waste pipelines that run through Florida and may have contributed to algae blooms in state rivers.

Gillum is running to “transition Florida to clean energy as rapidly as possible” and to crack down on “corporate polluters,” goals that would hurt Koch Industries’ bottom line.

For the Adelsons, uncritical support for Israel and its current government is their top issue, and DeSantis has been a leading booster of the Trump brand of Middle East diplomacy. Absent any proof, DeSantis has called Gillum an anti-Semite.DeSantis recently claimed that if elected, he would be the most pro-Israel governor in the country.

The Koch Groups

DeSantis is about as pro-Trump as you can get. His campaign’s first this year featured DeSantis, a self-proclaimed “pitbull Trump defender,” teaching his daughter to “build that wall” and to say, “Make America Great Again.”

In January 2016 DeSantis attended the Koch network’s invitation-only donor summit at a luxury resort in Indian Wells, Calif.. At these semi-annual gatherings, Koch and other rightwing billionaires and multi-millionaires get together to talk political spending strategy. Operatives invite various Republican candidates to audition before the donors of the Koch network.

It appears DeSantis passed the test, and even played golf with Koch at another donor summit in Colorado in June 2017.

A few months later, Americans for Prosperity’s Florida branch featured DeSantis at three events concerning tax cut legislation, which Congress passed in December to the Koch network’s delight.

In July 2018, Koch network super PAC Freedom Partners Action Fund (FPAF)endorsed DeSantis, giving him a big boost in the Republican primary where polls had him behind the frontrunner. Since then, FPAF, which is linked to Koch’s trade group and “central bank” of the Koch political network, Freedom Partners Chamber of Commerce, has spent $323,000 on mailers and digital ads supporting DeSantis.

FPAF recently released information on its 2018 third-quarter federal donors, including Charles Koch ($3 million) and Koch network donors Dick DeVos ($1 million) and Darwin Deason ($1 million), but its list of donors submitted to the Florida Division of Elections is extremely thin, amounting to only $25,000.

Another Koch super PAC popped up in September, this time tied to the Koch-backed social welfare nonprofit Americans for Prosperity.Americans for Prosperity Action, funded by FPAF ($5 million) and individuals such as Mountaire Corporation CEO Ronnie Cameron ($1 million) and private equity executive Wayne Laufer ($500,00), announced a digital ad and mailer campaign attacking Gillum, but no AFP Action documents appear on the Florida Division of Elections website. An AFP Action spokesperson told Sludge that the organization has spent $316,000 in the governor’s race. The committee had filed its registration papers weeks ago and that the Division of Elections was wrapping up the application process on Oct. 18.

Republican Governors Association

Both the Adelsons and Koch Industries have bankrolled the Republican Governors Association, a 527 political committee that spends on gubernatorial races around the country, this cycle. The Adelsons combined to donate $4 million to the RGA, while Koch Industries added $1 million, according to the group’s latest IRS filing.

The RGA created a Florida-based spending group, Florida Facts, and has donated $7.4 million to it so far. Florida Facts has spent nearly all of that total on TV ads attacking Gillum, including one that portrays him as a “radical, far-left” candidate and depicts him as an alien planet.

DeSantis PACs

Sheldon and Miriam Adelson donated $6,000 directly to the DeSantis campaign, but gave far more to an affiliated political committee, Friends of Ron DeSantis, which can accept unlimited amounts of money. Giving to Friends of Ron DeSantis are GOP megadonors who make up his campaign’s formidable Finance Leadership Team, including the Adelsons, who gave half a million dollars. Also on the team are current and former Koch network donors such as Foster Freiss ($10,000), Wayne Laufer ($75,000), Rebekah Mercer ($25,000) and Richard Uihlein ($500,000). The family of Education Sec. Betsy DeVos gave $200,000, including $50,000 from her husband, Dick. Koch network donor John Childs, a private equity executive, donated $600,000, and Ronnie Cameron gave $100,000. The Republican Governors Association also gave $1 million to the PAC.

Friends of Ron DeSantis also took in nearly $2.5 million from another committee, Fund for Florida’s Future, which is financed by several Koch network donors, including members of the Texas fracking billionaire Darwin Deason ($25,000) and his son, Doug ($10,000)—who are also on the leadership team—Laufer ($25,000) and Uihlein ($250,000), as well as other big donors, such as Home Depot co-founder Bernie Marcus ($250,000).

Gillum wants to end Florida’s school voucher program,which offers public scholarships for students to attend private and often religious schools. DeVos and her family are huge proponents of school vouchers, as well as school choice, and DeSantis’ proposal to expand “school choice” would certainly appeal to them.

DeSantis was able to transfer funds from his U.S. House campaign and his federal leadership PAC to Friends of Ron DeSantis. Koch Industries’ PAC donated $5,000 to DeSantis’ House campaign, which has transferred $1.1 million to Friends of Ron DeSantis. KochPACalso gave $5,000 to DeSantis’ leadership PAC, First Principles Fund, which later transferred $50,000 to Friends of Ron DeSantis.

Gillum has a billionaire benefactor, too. Liberal hedge fund manager Tom Steyer kicked in $2 million to Gillum’s Forward Florida PAC, and his NextGen America political nonprofit will reportedly spend $5 million to help Gillum’s bid for governor.

So far DeSantis’ campaign committee has raised roughly $12.3 million and spent close to $6.6 million, while Gillum’s campaign has received $13.4 million and spent roughly $9.6 million. But Friends of Ron DeSantis has gotten nearly $32 million in donations and spent almost all of that amount. Gillum’s Forward Florida has raised roughly $19.3 million since its inception in 2016 and has spent $16.6 million.

Additional Koch Ties

At least one member of DeSantis’ campaign team has worked for Koch-funded initiatives in the past. Communications strategist Sarah Bascom joined DeSantis’ campaign communications team in late September. In 2016, Bascom was the spokesperson for an anti-solar energy ballot measure campaign in Florida that was partially bankrolled by the Koch-backed political group 60 Plus Association.

The DeSantis and Gillum campaigns did not return requests for comment.

noshed on sushi and Thai-inspired taquitos on Sunday evening, klezmer music wailing in the background, the wealthy guests at the Zionist Organization of America’s annual blowout marveled at the right-wing celebrities in their midst. Sean Spicer and Sebastian Gorka couldn’t walk five feet without being asked for selfies. Alan Dershowitz held court over a small crowd of journalists. Senator Tom Cotton gamely mingled with Joe Lieberman, Chris Ruddy, and other members of the hawkish, pro-Israel power elite. But it was Steve Bannon, self-proclaimed “Christian Zionist” and the evening’s most notable speaker, who drew the most whispers (and, befittingly, a crowd of protesters outside Manhattan’s Grand Hyatt), rolling up just 10 minutes before the dinner began. Conspicuously absent from the roped-off V.I.P. table, however, was the Z.O.A.’s biggest donor, and perhaps the most powerful pro-Israel American of them all: Sheldon Adelson, whom Bannon was slated to introduce on stage. (Morton Klein, the president of the Z.O.A., told The Hive that Sheldon and his wife Miriam had been caught up at a Yad Vashem board meeting and were unable to attend, sending a statement to be read aloud at the end of the night.)

Though his absence went largely unremarked upon, a source told me that some in the crowd were surprised the next day when Adelson, the casino billionaire and wealthy Republican kingmaker, issued a public statement leaving no doubt where he stands when it comes to the Breitbart chairman’s quest to overhaul the establishment Republican Party, reshaping Congress in his image in 2018. “The Adelsons will not be supporting Steve Bannon’s efforts,” Andy Abboud, Adelson’s spokesman, told Politico on Monday, saying that instead they would back his establishment rival, Mitch McConnell, “100 percent. For anyone to infer anything otherwise is wrong.”

The statement reads as an awkward coda to Bannon’s remarks at the dinner, which praised the mogul for standing by Trump after the Access Hollywood tape leaked during the election. “Sheldon Adelson didn’t cut and run,” Bannon told the moneyed crowd. “Sheldon Adelson had Donald Trump’s back. Sheldon Adelson offered guidance and counsel and wisdom of how to get through it. He was there for Donald Trump about how to comport oneself and how to dig down deep, and it was his guidance and his wisdom that helped get us through it.”

It’s unclear to what extent the statement comes as a blow to Bannon, given that there’s some doubt Adelson supported the Breitbart News chief’s populist insurgency in the first place. Back in October, Politico reported that Adelson, who is more traditional when it comes to domestic policy, met with Bannon privately to discuss Israel-related issues, on which they share similar views, but declined to fund his congressional midterm efforts. The Bannon camp downplayed Adelson’s statement, saying that it was inevitable the two men would not see eye to eye, and that Bannon had not asked Adelson for money—“How do you lose someone you never tried or expected to get?” Andy Surabian, the director of the Bannon-backed Great America PAC, told me. But several people close to Adelson told Politico they had ”grown concerned” about his ties to Bannon, who is finding it difficult to shake off his veneer as an anti-immigrant, anti-trade firebrand with an unfortunate link to white supremacism.

Bannon’s steadfast support of Roy Moore, the Senate candidate he backed in Alabama’s G.O.P. primary against McConnell’s preferred candidate, Luther Strange, hasn’t exactly helped his cause. Over the past week, Moore has been slammed with multiple allegations that he molested teenage girls when he was in his 30s, seemingly validating McConnell’s charge that Bannon’s populist-nationalism would end with unelectable Republican candidates. (Bannon, naturally, blamed the media for pursuing an anti-Moore agenda, and made sure to issue a general denunciation of the press during his Z.O.A. remarks.)

Earlier this month, Bannon also lost the backing of longtime patron Robert Mercer, a hedge-fund billionaire who had infused Breitbart with cash and helped bankroll an entertainment venture run by former Breitbart editor Milo Yiannopolous. In an open letter denouncing white supremacists within the nationalist movement, Mercer announced that he would be pulling funding from Milo Inc. and selling his stake in Breitbart to his daughter, Rebekah. “I have great respect for Mr. Bannon, and from time to time I do discuss politics with him,” Mercer wrote in an open letter to investors in Renaissance Technologies, from which he stepped down as co-C.E.O. “However, I make my own decisions with respect to whom I support politically. Those decisions do not always align with Mr. Bannon’s.”

But if Adelson sought to reject Bannon, the Z.O.A., which counts him and his wife, Miriam, as major donors, did not get the memo: it welcomed Bannon as an honored guest, sending out a press release before the gala saying it was “proud and fortunate” to have the the former White House chief strategist on its side, and feted him on Sunday with a cheesecake buffet, free-flowing wine, and a candlelit table, even in Adelson’s absence.

And all so that couples with one family jet can afford, his-and-her private jets, like gambling mogul Sheldon and his wife Miriam with their twin personal Boeing 747s, as I revealed in my book *The Fine Print*. With their tax savings, the Adelsons would be able to upgrade to personal Airbus A-380s, those double-decker jetliners are built in France....

https://www.ecowatch.com/nevada-renewable-energy-sheldon-adelson-2421523447.html

Casino Magnate Wants to Kill Bill That Would Make Nevada a Renewable Energy Powerhouse

By David Pomerantz

The Nevada Assembly passed a bill Wednesday that would dramatically increase the growth of renewable energy in the state, but Sheldon Adelson, the casino magnate and major donor to Donald Trump, is attempting to prevent the bill from becoming law.

The bill, AB 206, would ensure that Nevada gets 80 percent of its electricity from renewable sources by 2040. AB 206 passed the assembly with bipartisan support by a margin of 30 to 12, but it must now pass the Senate and be signed by Gov. Brian Sandoval.

Adelson owns the Las Vegas Sands casino giant, and is known in national political circles for the massive amounts of money he has plowed into Republican coffers; he spent $100 million in the 2012 election cycle, and then donated $35 million to the super PAC that supported Donald Trump's general election campaign last year, plus another $5 million to Trump's inauguration.

Given Adelson's support for conservative politicians, clean energy supporters considered it a happy coup in 2016 when the Sands Corporation threw money behind a ballot initiative that would allow electric customers to defect from the monopoly utility NV Energy.

Sands was the biggest bankroller of the committee that backed the ballot initiative, Nevadans for Affordable, Clean Energy Choices. The company didn't shy away from saying that their support for the initiative was motivated by a desire to use electricity from cleaner sources than NV Energy had on offer, garnering it fawning press in Nevada and globally.

"… The company maintains a strong desire to purchase and use the cleanest and most cost efficient energy available on the open market," a Sands spokesperson said in a statement about its support for the ballot initiative.

Adelson Pulls a Bait and Switch on Renewable Energy

Now, however, it's clear that while Adelson may want Sands to have the ability to defect from NV Energy, his motives were not as green as advertised last year.

Sands testified last month against AB 206, along with Wynn Resorts and the Nevada Resort Association (NRA). Why would Adelson, who spent all of 2016 saying that he wanted Sands to power with renewable energy, now be lobbying against legislation to move Nevada in that very direction?

The answer is likely that the bill language not only holds NV Energy to the increased renewable energy standard, but also any companies that defect from the utility, which could soon be Sands.

Adelson seems to want to maintain his company's unfettered ability to buy not only renewable energy, but also as much natural gas as he wants, for as long as he wants, as well.

"We feel that this just isn't the time to codify these mandates," Sands lobbyist Chase Whittemore said about the bill, according to the Nevada Independent. NV Energy also fought the bill, introducing unsuccessful amendments to neuter it.

Is Adelson Funding a New Dark Money Group to Kill Nevada Renewable Energy Growth?

The lobbying against AB 206 by Sands, Wynn, the Resort Association and NV Energy did not seem to slow down the bill's progress in the assembly, but the casino operators and NV Energy may have another trick up their sleeves: a new dark-money group is making a final two-week push to kill the bill in the Senate or on Gov. Sandoval's desk. The Independent reported this week:

"A new nonprofit that does not disclose its donors plans to spend six figures in the last two weeks of the Legislature to try to defeat a renewable energy measure opposed by most gaming companies."

The non-profit, called "Secure Nevada's Future," registered with Nevada as a non-profit organization in April, listing Texas as its qualifying state. Its list of officers is due May 31. The group seems to have a Facebook page which also became active in April.

As long as Secure Nevada's Future refuses to disclose its donors, it's impossible to know if Adelson, Wynn, NV Energy or some other mystery opponents of increased renewable energy is funding the effort, but longtime Nevada political reporter Jon Ralston wrote that "it's a reasonable assumption that major businesses are funding the operation."

Ralston reported that the one person publicly associated with the group as its executive director, Chris Young, used to work for Chris Carr while at the RNC; Carr now runs Wynn's political operation. Carr had previously run a non-profit, "Engage Nevada" that received significant funding from Adelson personally, as well as from NV Energy.

Conflict of Interest Among Nevada Resort Association Lobbyists

While Adelson's Sands Corporation tries to kill the strong renewable energy standard, another casino company, the MGM Grand Corporation, has actually shown that its commitment to renewable energy is more than just greenwashing. The company came out publicly in support of AB 206 earlier this week.

Like Wynn and Sands, MGM Grand is a member of the Nevada Resort Association—more than 10 of its properties are named as NRA member resorts, and MGM is listed on the NRA's board, along with Wynn.

But despite MGM's support for renewable energy growth, the NRA has sided with Wynn, Sands and NV Energy. The internal politics that drove that decision aren't public, but it's possible that some conflicts of interest among the NRA's lobbyists may be a contributing factor.

Carson City is a small town, and lobbyists commonly represent multiple interests, but a review of lobbyists for NV Energy, MGM Grand, Wynn, Sands, the NRA and Caesars revealed that the only overlap was between NV Energy and the NRA, and that overlap was significant: Of 12 lobbyists listed for NV Energy, seven are also lobbyists for the NRA. Those lobbyists are Morgan Baumgartner, Pete Ernaut, Greg Ferraro, Lorne Malkiewich, Nivk Vassiliadis, Nicole Willis-Grimes and Paul Young.

$5 mill inaug slush fund

Adelson – Estimated worth: $30.4 billion. Contributions (with wife Miriam) since 1989: $190.4 million

Sheldon and Miriam Adelson spent $82.5 million last cycle, coming in at No. 2 after opening the spigots late in the election season to douse GOP outside groups with cash: the Congressional and Senate Leadership Funds, pro-Trump super PAC Future45 and Granite State Solutions, which worked against Democrat Maggie Hassan’s bid to win a New Hampshire Senate seat. The casino magnate couple topped our list in 2012, donating $93.2 million to Republicans and super PACs like Restore Our Future ($15 million), which was devoted to helping elect Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney.

wiki

2010

In 2010, Adelson donated $1 million to American Solutions for Winning the Future, a political action committee(PAC) supporting Republican former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich.^[59] In December 2011, during Gingrich's bid for the U.S. presidency, Adelson spoke favorably of controversial remarks Gingrich had made about Palestinians, saying "read the history of those who call themselves Palestinians, and you will hear why Gingrich said recently that the Palestinians are an invented people."^[60]

U.S. Senate candidates he donated to:^[61]

Carly Fiorina (R-CA), former chief executive officer of Hewlett-Packard
Sharron Angle (R-NV), Assemblywoman
Sue Lowden (R-NV), former State Senator
Scott Brown (R-MA), U.S. Senator and former State Senator
Roy Blunt (R-MO), U.S. Congressman
Mark Kirk (R-IL), U.S. Congressman
Pat Toomey (R-PA), former U.S. Congressman
Charlie Crist (R-FL, later D-FL), Governor

Congressional candidates:

Virginia Foxx (R-NC);
Eric Cantor (R-VA);
Joe Heck (R-NV).

2012

During the 2012 Republican Party presidential primaries, Adelson first supported Newt Gingrich and then the eventual nominee Mitt Romney.^[62] Altogether he spent $92 million supporting losing candidates during the 2012 United States presidential election cycle.^[63]

On January 7, 2012, Adelson bolstered Gingrich's then-faltering campaign with a $5-million donation to the pro-Gingrich super PAC Winning Our Future.^[64] By the next day, the super PAC had reserved more than $3.4 million in advertising time in the South Carolina primary, which included production and distribution of a half-hour movie that portrayed Gingrich's political rival Mitt Romney as a "predatory corporate raider".^[65]

On January 23, Adelson's wife, Miriam, contributed an additional $5 million to the same organization with instructions to use it to advance a "pro-Newt message".^[66][67] Adelson told Forbes that he was willing to donate as much as $100 million to Gingrich.^[68]

He also donated $5 million to the right-leaning^[69] super PAC Congressional Leadership Fund^[70] and over $60,000 to the Republican National Committee.^[citation ^needed]

In June 2012, Adelson donated $10 million to the pro-Romney PAC Restore Our Future.^[71] In July, Adelson attended a Romney fundraiser held in Jerusalem.^[72] Adelson joined Woody Johnson, John Rakolta, Paul Singer, and several dozen other contributors on the trip.^[73] According to Bloomberg Businessweek, as of July Adelson had given Republicans more than $30 million for the 2012 election cycle.^[73]

Romney believes that China should be pressured to drop its presumptively low fixed exchange rate policy; according to Bloomberg, Adelson would benefit financially in US dollar terms through his interest in Chinese casinos if the Chinese yuan were to appreciate.^[74]

2014

Early in 2014 Adelson donated $2.5 million to the Drug Free Florida Committee, the political committee trying to defeat Florida's Right to Medical Marijuana Initiative which would legalize Medical cannabis in that state.^[75][76]Later in 2014, Adelson donated an additional $1.5 million to the No On 2 campaign. He believes that cannabis is a gateway drug.^[48]

2016

According to the Washington Post, Adelson's strategy for the 2016 United States presidential election is to support a mainstream candidate capable of winning in 2016. In March 2014 Adelson was set to hold one-on-one chats with possible candidates Jeb Bush, Chris Christie, Scott Walker, and John Kasich during the spring meeting of the Republican Jewish Coalition held at Adelson's luxury hotel and casino The Venetian Las Vegas.^[63] During the December 2015 Republican debate held at that same venue, Adelson was reported to have held one-on-one meetings with several of the candidates prior to the start of the debate, including front runner Donald Trump.^[77] On May 13, he endorsed Trump for president,^[78] and pledged as much as $100 million to support his campaign.^[79]

In October 2016 Adelson donated one million dollars to the campaign against Massachusetts ballot question 4 the Massachusetts Legalization, Regulation and Taxation of Marijuana Initiative which would legalize marijuana for personal use.^[80]

Adelson also donated $500,000 towards the effort to thwart the 2016 Florida medical Marijuana Legalization Initiative,^[81] including a contribution of $1 million to the Drug-Free Florida Committee, who also fought the initiative.^[82]

http://www.democracynow.org/2015/12/30/headlines/new_york_times_rich_have_built_their_own_private_tax_system

update smith quits

http://www.democracynow.org/2016/4/27/headlines/las_vegas_review_journal_columnist_quits_after_being_banned_from_writing_on_sheldon_adelson

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/12/why-did-sheldon-adelson-buy-nevadas-largest-newspaper/421035/

http://www.alternet.org/plutocrats-have-captured-it-all-how-sheldon-adelson-shows-need-campaign-finance-reform

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Sheldon_Adelson

Sheldon Gray Adelson is ranked #6 of the world's billionaires in 2007, with an estimated net worth in excess of $26.5 billion.^[1] In 2006, Adelson ranked #3 in the Forbes 400 richest Americans, with an estimated net worth in excess of $20.5 billion.^[2]. In the 2011-2012 Election Cycle, Adelson donated at least $70 million to conservative groups dedicated to influencing the presidential and congressional election, making him thelargest single political donor in US history. ^[3]

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Influencing the 2011-2012 Election Cycle

Adelson spent about $20 million supporting the failed presidential campaign of Newt Gingrich, including at least $10 million to his PAC "Winning our Future". Adelson's contributions helped Gingrich win the crucial South Carolina Republican Primary. ^[4] Adelson has given $20 million to Restore Our Future, the SuperPAC supporting the presidential campaign of Mitt Romney. The Romney campaign's dependence on Adelson's contributions drew criticism from fellow Republicans, including John McCain, who told the PBS Newshour: "Much of Mr. Adelson's casino profits that go to him come from his casino in Macau, which says that obviously, maybe in a roundabout way foreign money is coming into an American political campaign," ^[5] Adelson's contributions to "outside groups" include $10 million to Karl Rove's Crossroads GPS, $10 million to assorted Koch-funded groups like Americans for Prosperity, and $5 million to Eric Cantor's "Young Guns Network". ^[6]

Of the $70 million that Adelson spent influencing the 2012 election cycle, $20 to $30 million went to 501(c)(3) and (c)(4) groups that do not have to disclose their donors.^[7]

2012 Investigation by US Justice Department

Since early 2012, Adelson has been the subject of a Justice Department investigation inquiring into activities at Adelson-controlled casinos in Macau, a special administrative region of China, west of Hong Kong. Adelson is suspected of violating sections of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (which prohibits the bribing of foreign officials) while dealing with the Chinese government. ^[8]

Emails leaked by ex-company employees prompted the investigation, Adelson allegedly instructed a top executive to make a $700,000 payment to Leonel Alves, a Macau legislator, to help resolve two issues: a lawsuit by a Taiwanese businessman and permission to sell luxury apartments in Macau. ^[9] Adelson instructed executives at the Macau casino to pay the official despite warnings from his general counsel that the payment could violate of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. ^[10] The Chinese government has fined Adelson's company $1.6 million for regulations violations ^[11]

Adelson's casino empire is also under investigation for possibly violating federal money-laundering laws, by accepting millions from high-rolling gamblers accused of drug trafficking and embezzlement. The company did not report the receipt of hundreds of millions of dollars from gamblers accused of drug-dealing and embezzlement ^[12] ^[13]

Prior Political contributions

According to the Newsmeat Hall of Fame of political contributors, between 1984 and June 2007, Adelson has contributed nearly a million dollars, $791,563 to Republicancandidates, $165,069 to Democratic candidates, and $37,000 to special interests.^[14]

In the 2008 election cycle, Adelson contributed $28,500 to the National Republican Senatorial Committee, $4,600 each to Nevada Republican candidates Rep. Jon Porter and Rep. Dean Heller; $4,600 to Virginia Republican Rep. Eric Cantor; and $2,300 to North Carolina Republican Rep. Virginia Foxx.^[14]

In 2006, shortly after the November elections, Adelson gave $1 million to Republican Newt Gingrich's 527 committee, American Solutions for Winning the Future, a group which Gingrich formed earlier that year. ^[15]

Adelson was one of several prominent conservatives and board members of the Republican Jewish Coalition funding Freedom's Watch, a pro-Bush White House front group^[16] which on August 22, 2007, began "a multimillion-dollar advertising campaign to urge members of Congress who may be wavering in their support for the war in Iraq not to 'cut and run'."^[17]

Freedom Watch's ad buys target both Porter and Heller in Nevada—to the tune of $202,110.^[18]

Adelson spent at least $30 million on political activities in the 2008 election cycle.^[19]

A Boston native, Adelson is the CEO of Las Vegas Sands.^[20] On August 17, 2007, the Associated Press reported that William P. Weidner, President/COO/Director of the Las Vegas Sands Corporation, a Las Vegas, Nevada, resort and casino and another Freedom's Watch supporter, said that Adelson, who "keeps a home in Massachusetts and pays taxes in the state," had been lobbying local officials "to legalize casino gambling" in Massachusetts.^[20]

Controversy

"He's the third richest person in the U.S., worth $20.5 billion, with a rags-to-riches story: the son of a Boston cabdriver, Adelson inaugurated the Comdex computer trade show, and then went into tourism, real estate, and casinos. He is CEO of the Las Vegas Sands Corp., which operates the Venetian Casino Resort and the Sands Expo and Convention Center. Adelson is a major contributor to Jewish and Israeli causes,^[21] and to the GOP.^[22] This series of ads isn't his only propagandistic foray: the Vegas casino king has also gone into the newspaper business – in Israel.^[23] Yisrael Hayom is a new daily paper closely tied to the ultra-nationalist wing of the Likud party, and Benjamin Netanyahu's political aspirations.^[24] It was recently launched with a massive free mailing to hundreds of thousands, and has attracted considerable attention," Justin Raimondo wrote August 24, 2007, at Antiwar.com.^[25]

Profiles

Adelson's 2007 Forbes profile^[1] describes him as follows: "Son of a Boston cabdriver borrowed $200 from his uncle to sell newspapers at age 12. Made first fortune in trade shows. Created computer industry's premier show, Comdex, mid-1980s; ran 70% profit margin renting space for 15 cents a square foot and leasing it to exhibitors for up to $40 a square foot. Sold show to Japan's SoftBank for $862 million in 1995. Then Las Vegas: bought old Sands casino for $128 million, demolished it to build the $1.5 billion all-suites Venetian casino resort and the 1.2-million-square foot Sands Convention Center. Changed the way Vegas does business by enticing conventioneers to Sin City midweek, taking emphasis off gambling. Sold suites for $250 a night, added high-end retailers, celebrity-chef restaurants. Old guard mocked him: 'I loved being the outsider. I didn't care what those guys said.' Took Las Vegas Sands public December 2004. Building $1.8 billion Palazzo resort adjacent to arch-rival Steve Wynn's Wynn Las Vegas. Big bet on Asia: opened $265 million Sands Macau casino May 2004, recouped entire investment in one year. Ramping up construction on Cotai Strip: $6 billion project will place 7 hotel-casinos on Macau's 2 islands, Taipa and Coloane. Cornerstone of project will be $1.8 billion Venetian Macau. Last May won coveted Singapore gaming license. Plans to build $3.5 billion Marina Bay Sands on 51-acre site with a view of the city's skyline."

SourceWatch resources

External resources

Sheldon Adelson NeoCon Europe
Biography: Sheldon Adelson, Jewish Virtual Library
Sheldon Adelson in the Wikipedia

External articles

Sonia Kolesnikov-Jessop, "Spotlight: Sheldon Adelson. A 'visionary' keeps thinking big," International Herald Tribune, March 16, 2007.
Mike Allen, "Pro-Bush group spends $15M defending war," The Politico (posted by Free Republic), August 22, 2007.
Paul Kiel, "*NJ*: Big Money for Pro-War Group Comes from Casino Mogul," TPMmuckraker, September 12, 2007.
David McKee, "And now a word from our sponsor ... Sheldon Adelson helps sell the continuation of the War in Iraq," Las Vegas City Life, September 13, 2007.
J. Patrick Coolican, "Sheldon Adelson: Powerful in Vegas, hawkish toward Iran," Las Vegas Sun, October 7, 2007.
"Bush,Cheney, Sheldon Adelson, and Deja Vu All Over Again: Priming a War with Iran," Desert Beacon Blogspot, October 7, 2007.
Jim Lobe, "Likudnik Hawks Work to Undermine Annapolis," Inter Press Service (Antiwar.com), November 22, 2007.
Peter Stone, "Betting on Red: Conservatives are counting on casino mogul Sheldon Adelson, the right's answer to George Soros -- only richer," Mother Jones, January/February 2008 Issue.
Thomas B. Edsall, "Sheldon Adelson: GOP's Answer To George Soros?" Huffington Post, July 25, 2008.
"Las Vegas Sands Plunges on Default, Bankruptcy Risk (Update4)", Bloomberg, November 6, 2008.

References

↑ ^Jump ^up ^to:1.0 ^1.1 "The World's Billionaires: Sheldon Adelson", Forbes, March 8, 2007.
:{Jump up:(style="top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important;-webkit-user-select:none"):}:↑ "The Richest 400 Americans: #3 Sheldon Adelson", Forbes, September 21, 2006
:{Jump up:(style="top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important;-webkit-user-select:none"):}:↑ Mike Allen: Sheldon Adelson: Inside the Mind of the Mega-Donor, Politico, September 23rd, 2012
:{Jump up:(style="top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important;-webkit-user-select:none"):}:↑ Nicholas Confessore: Super PAC for Gingrich to get $5 million infusion, New York Times, January 23rd, 2012
:{Jump up:(style="top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important;-webkit-user-select:none"):}:↑ Josh Rogin: Adelson Funding Romney SuperPAC with "Foreign Money", Foreign Policy Wire, June 15th, 2012
:{Jump up:(style="top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important;-webkit-user-select:none"):}:↑ Peter H. Stone: Sheldon Adelson to Lavish $71 million in Casino Money on GOP SuperPACs, Nonprofits, Huffington Post, June 16th, 2012
:{Jump up:(style="top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important;-webkit-user-select:none"):}:↑ Mike Allen: Sheldon Adelson: Inside the Mind of the Mega-Donor, Politico, September 23rd, 2012
:{Jump up:(style="top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important;-webkit-user-select:none"):}:↑ Laura Stiegerwald: GOP Mega Donor Investigated for Bribing Chinese Government Officials, PRwatch, July 20th, 2012
:{Jump up:(style="top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important;-webkit-user-select:none"):}:↑ Macau Daily Times: Alves allegedly received USD 700,000 for facilitating USD 300m bribe related to Sands, July 18th, 2012
:{Jump up:(style="top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important;-webkit-user-select:none"):}:↑ Propublica: Emails on Alves Employment and Payment, Accessed September 24th, 2012
:{Jump up:(style="top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important;-webkit-user-select:none"):}:↑ Michael Luo: Sheldon Adelson's Dealings in China are Under Investigation, New York Times, August 13th, 2012
:{Jump up:(style="top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important;-webkit-user-select:none"):}:↑ New York Times Editorial: In Thrall to Sheldon Adelson, Published August 16th, 2012
:{Jump up:(style="top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important;-webkit-user-select:none"):}:↑ Wall Street Journal: Las Vegas Sands under Investigation in Money Move, posted August 7th, 2012
↑ ^Jump ^up ^to:14.0 ^14.1 Hall of Fame: Billionaires: Sheldon Adelson, Newsmeat
:{Jump up:(style="top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important;-webkit-user-select:none"):}:↑ Bill Berkowitz, "Newt Gingrich says if supporters pledge $30 million he'll enter presidential race", Media Transparency, September 29, 2007.
:{Jump up:(style="top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important;-webkit-user-select:none"):}:↑ "Adelson runs attack ads against Porter," Las Vegas Gleaner, August 22, 2007.
:{Jump up:(style="top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important;-webkit-user-select:none"):}:↑ "Group to Urge War Support," New York Times, August 22, 2007.
:{Jump up:(style="top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important;-webkit-user-select:none"):}:↑ Tom Matzzie, "An open thank you letter to Ari Fleischer," AMERICAblog, August 22, 2007.
:{Jump up:(style="top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important;-webkit-user-select:none"):}:↑ Thomas B. Edsall, "Sheldon Adelson: GOP's Answer To George Soros?" Huffington Post, July 25, 2008.
↑ ^Jump ^up ^to:20.0 ^20.1 "Billionaire Adelson lobbying for Massachusetts casino," Associated Press (WHDH.com Boston), August 17, 2007.
:{Jump up:(style="top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important;-webkit-user-select:none"):}:↑ Tamar Morad, "Sheldon Adelson pledges annual $200 million to Jewish, Israeli causes," Haaretz, December 9, 2006.
:{Jump up:(style="top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important;-webkit-user-select:none"):}:↑ Zach Edwards, "Does Sheldon Adelson have more than one puppet?" Mister Apologist Blogspot, March 14, 2007.
:{Jump up:(style="top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important;-webkit-user-select:none"):}:↑ Alan D. Abbey, "Vegas Casino King Makes Bid For Israeli Media Moguldom," The Jewish Daily Forward, August 15, 2007.
:{Jump up:(style="top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important;-webkit-user-select:none"):}:↑ Arnaud de Borchgrave, ed., "Analysis: Never again?" UPI, January 2, 2007.
:{Jump up:(style="top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important;-webkit-user-select:none"):}:↑ Justin Raimondo, "Home Front 'Surge'. War Party's ad campaign will boomerang," Antiwar.com, August 24, 2007.

Categories:

http://www.alternet.org/print/news-amp-politics/casinos-and-offshore-companies-are-furiously-battling-each-other

sheldonpalooza

Despite claims to be focused exclusively on this year's gubernatorial election, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker and other GOP presidential hopefuls are jetting off to Las Vegas for an exclusive gathering with billionaire Republican donor Sheldon Adelson, who is reportedly assessing the field for 2016 after plowing $92 million into the 2012 presidential election cycle.

During Walker's hotly contested 2012 recall elections spurred by Walker's crackdown on collective bargaining, Adelson wrote the Wisconsin governor a $250,000 check.

Walker will join former Florida Governor Jeb Bush, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, and Ohio Governor John Kasich at Adelson's Venetian hotel, in what one Republican strategist calling the "Sheldon Primary."

Officially, the potential 2016 candidates will be attending a meeting of the Republican Jewish Coalition, "But some of the most important events will occur between the poker tournament, Scotch tasting and strategy workshops. That’s when Adelson is scheduled to hold casual one-on-one chats — over coffee, at dinner or in his private office — with the prospective candidates," the *Washington Post* reports.

Adelson spent $15 million in 2012 on long-shot candidate Newt Gingrich, extending the GOP primary season and hobbling the eventual nominee, Mitt Romney. For 2016, he is trying to be more careful.“The bar for support is going to be much higher,” Andy Abboud, Adelson’s top political adviser told the Washington Post. “There’s going to be a lot more scrutiny.”

ifg

Ranking: 1

Total contributions to super PACs: $93.3 million*

$20 million to Restore Our Future (pro-Mitt Romney), half of which is from his wife, Miriam Adelson
$23 million to American Crossroads (pro-Republican), half of which is from his wife
$16.5 million to Winning Our Future (pro-Newt Gingrich), including $7.5 million from his wife and $1.5 million from other family members
$5 million to Congressional Leadership Fund (pro-Republican), half of which is from his wife
$5 million to YG Action Fund (pro-Republican), half of which is from his wife
$4 million to Independence Virginia PAC (pro-George Allen)
$2 million to Freedom PAC (pro-Connie Mack; pro-Allen West)
$2 million to Republican Jewish Coalition Victory Fund (pro-Republican), half of which is from his wife
$1.15 million to Ending Spending Action Fund (pro-Republican), of which $575,000 is from his wife
$1 million to Treasure Coast Jobs Coalition (pro-Allen West), half of which is from his wife
$1 million to Patriot Prosperity PAC (pro-Joe Kyrillos; pro-Shmuley Boteach), half of which is from his wife
$1 million to Hardworking Americans Committee (pro-Peter Hoekstra; pro-Mitt Romney)
$500,000 to America 360 Committee (pro-Scott Brown), half of which is from his wife
$380,000 to Hispanic Leadership Fund Action (pro-Mitt Romney)
$250,000 to Conservative Renewal (pro-David Dewhurst)
$250,000 to Texas Conservatives Fund (pro-David Dewhurst)
$250,000 to JAN PAC (pro-Republican), half of which is from his wife

Notable federal hard money and 527 contributions:

More than $320,000 to the Republican National State Elections Committee

Notable state-level contributions (see here):

$390,000 to the California Republican Party (2010)
$250,000 to the Florida Republican Party (2012)
$250,000 to Scott Walker's gubernatorial bid in Wisconsin (2012)
$100,000 to Coloradans Against A Really Stupid Idea (2004)

Corporate ownership: Controlling interest, Las Vegas Sands Corp.

Subsidiaries: Sands China Ltd., Venetian Macau Ltd.

Total spent on federal lobbying (2007-2012): $1.3 million, according to the Center for Responsive Politics

Lobbying issues: Gambling and casinos, labor and workplace issues, trade, travel and tourism restrictions, taxes, banking, aviation.

Family: Wife Miriam Adelson, stepdaughters Yasmin Lukatz and Sivan Ochshorn, daughter Shelley Faye Adelson, four other children (one deceased).

Biography:

After bankrolling the main super PAC supporting former House Speaker Newt Gingrich's failed presidential bid, Sheldon Adelson pivoted to support GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney and his primary super PAC. Adelson has also reportedly funneled tens of millions more to conservative 501(c)(4) nonprofits, according to the *Huffington Post*. These groups are not required to disclose their donors.

Among them are Crossroads GPS, the Young Guns Network and groups aligned with the Koch brothers, the story said, citing unnamed sources.

All told, including donations given to both super PACs and nonprofits, Adelson and wife, Miriam, contributed more than $150 million to pro-Republican efforts during the 2012 election cycle, according the *Huffington Post*. Giving to super PACs alone, exceeded $93 million, which is more than any other individual or married couple.

At first, the casino magnate and top donor to super PACs was best known as a Gingrich’s most generous supporter. Adelson’s wife, Miriam, a physician, even wrote a $5 million check to the pro-Gingrich super PAC Winning Our Future in late March. Days later, Adelson admitted that Gingrich was “at the end of his line.” The $5 million contribution was later refunded.

Until that point, Gingrich, who suspended his campaign on May 2, 2012, was the sole beneficiary of Adelson’s largesse. By Election Day, scores of candidates were aided by super PACs at the receiving end of Adelson's political contributions.

Gingrich and the Adelsons have known each other for years, and share similar pro-Israel and hard-line views on the Middle East. The Adelsons have donated hundreds of millions of dollars to various Jewish and Israeli causes through several charitable foundations they have created. Sheldon Adelson, born in 1933, is of Jewish-Ukrainian descent, and Miriam Adelson has dual citizenship in the United States and her native Israel.

Roughly two-thirds of Adelson’s $93 million went to super PACs that backed just one or two specific candidates. None of Adelson’s preferred candidates prevailed in any of the 10 races in which these super PACs were active.

Adelson was born in Dorchester, Mass., and attended City College of New York for some time before dropping out. Before entering the casino and gaming industry, Adelson worked as a mortgage broker, investment adviser and financial consultant. His biggest early business success was the annual Comdex computer trade show, which he and his partners first organized in 1979 and sold for $862 million in 1995.

Though Adelson lost heavily in the Great Recession, shares of the Las Vegas Sands Corp. have climbed from 2008 lows of less than $2 to more than $52 in early 2013, and Forbesreports he is the nation's eighth wealthiest man worth an estimated $21.5 billion. His casino empire extends across the United States and Asia, and the company’s annual report shows more than $9.4 billion in revenues in 2011.

The Las Vegas Sands Corp. has been under investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Department of Justice for more than a year on possible charges of bribing foreign officials, and more recently, for possible money laundering. A former executive’s 2010 wrongful-termination lawsuit also alleges that Las Vegas Sands Corp. was involved with Chinese organized crime groups.

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., a longtime campaign finance reform advocate, said the corporation’s activity abroad raises foreign money concerns.

“Obviously, maybe in a roundabout way, foreign money is coming into an American campaign,” McCain said in an interview with PBS.

After Obama was re-elected on Nov. 6, the Hebrew-language newspaper owned by Adelson in Israel ran the news with the headline “America Chose Socialism,” according to Business Insider.

Last updated: Jan. 30, 2013

**2011-2012 election cycle. Source: Center for Responsive Politics and Center for Public Integrity analysis of Federal Election Commission records. Totals include contributions from individuals, family members and corporations that are controlled by the individual super donor.http://www.publicintegrity.org/2012/03/20/8465/donor-profile-sheldon-adelson*

What Right-Wing Attack Groups Got For $228,646,000

adelson PO'd 0 for 8?

Last week, the New American Energy Opportunity Foundation, a 501(c)(4) group led by two executives at an oil and gas company, revealed it had paid for nearly $800,000 in radio ads targeting President Barack Obama on his energy policy and the funds came thanks to a donation from Las Vegas casino titan Sheldon Adelson.

Adelson and his family have given more than $53 million to super PACs this election.

Shell corporations...

A little-known non-profit with ties to the oil and gas industry that has recently begun attacking President Barack Obama for restricting America's "energy opportunity" revealed late last week that it is receiving substantial funding from Sheldon Adelson, the casino owner who has dumped tens of millions of dollars into outside spending groups this election year.

Following the 2010 Citizens United vs. Federal Election Commission decision, social welfare organizations, known as 501(c)(4) groups after the section of tax code they are governed by, are allowed to spend unlimited amounts of money directly advocating for the election or defeat of candidates through political ads -- up to just under half of their total budgets. But unlike super PACs, they are under no obligation to disclose their funders. The Center for Responsive Politics has dubbed these organizations "shadow money groups" for their lack of transparency.

However, on Oct. 19, the New American Energy Opportunity Foundation, a 501(c)(4) group, made a filing with the FEC that actually disclosed the funder of a new series of radio commercials.

According to the group's report, which you can see here, the organization paidMarketel Media, of Temecula, Cal., nearly $800,000 for the production and placement of a radio ad on "energy independence issues." The filing shows that every dime of the advertisements' cost was paid for by Adelson. The Center for Responsive Politics was not able to locate a copy of the advertisement, but the group's website indicates that the organization's main issue is reducing restrictions on drilling for gas and oil in the United States.

A posted on the group's YouTube account makes it very clear that President Barack Obama is the true target of the ad -- and that Romney is the group's solution.

...http://www.opensecrets.org/news/2012/10/shadow-money-group-discloses-adelso.html?utm_source=CRP+Mail+List&utm_campaign=6af14e66fd-Newsletter_10_25_2012&utm_medium=email

Adelson attends Koch conf, gave $ to koch, rove superpac DN 7/18, bribery, chinese mafia

http://njtoday.net/2012/02/02/adelsons-attend-koch-brothers-conference-for-mega-donors/

Newt's loot: Billionaire commits $20M By: Maggie Haberman and Kenneth P. Vogel December 15, 2011 01:49 PM EST
Casino magnate Sheldon Adelson is planning to direct $20 million to an outside group backing Newt Gingrich’s presidential campaign, multiple sources told POLITICO — the first answer to urgent pleas from allies to the former speaker’s longtime billionaire supporters. After leaving Congress, Gingrich cultivated a network of a few dozen über-wealthy backers who poured tens of millions of dollars into a network of groups that helped him maintain a foothold in politics. Now, operatives supporting his presidential campaign are asking those same donors to write fat checks to a suite of new super PACs they hope can spend big on ads to offset Gingrich campaign fundraising that had lagged behind his rivals’. Adelson is considered the prized get for pro-Gingrich groups. Adelson spokesman Ron Reese denied the $20 million commitment, saying “there’s no truth to any speculation that Mr. Adelson has made a commitment to either contribute or raise this amount of money.” Reese declined to comment on potential future political giving by Adelson on behalf of Gingrich or in general, saying Adelson doesn’t talk about his political activities. Many major donors prefer to keep their activity low-profile, though federal rules require super PACs to disclose their donors in the coming weeks. Sources with direct knowledge of the $20 million figure, who requested anonymity, told POLITICO that Adelson planned to cut a check to one of the PACs as soon as this week. A major contribution from Adelson would enable the recipient group to start airing ads in Iowa to counter a weeklong anti-Gingrich on-air assault that is already taking a toll on his front-runner status in the Hawkeye State, according to private and public polling. Adelson and his wife Miriam Adelson each contributed the $2,500 maximum to Gingrich’s campaign for the Republican presidential nomination in August. But there weren’t many options for them and other wealthy donors looking to give more to help Gingrich through the summer, when his campaign was on life support. That changed as Gingrich’s campaign started surging last month, prompting his allies to create new outside groups known as super PACs that can accept unlimited funds to air ads supporting him. Perhaps the leading player in the pro-Gingrich super PAC space, Winning Our Future, was unveiled this week and is being headed by Becky Burkett, who was the lead fundraiser for Gingrich’s main political vehicle over the past few years, the fundraising juggernaut American Solutions for Winning the Future. That group raised $54 million — including $7.7 million from Adelson — between its late 2006 creation and its collapsethis year after Gingrich left it to run for president, according to Internal Revenue Service filings. On Tuesday, Burkett declined to detail her relationship with Adelson, telling POLITICO, “I certainly know him through American Solutions,” but added, “I have not spoken to him” about Winning Our Future. Charlie Smith, who runs another new pro-Gingrich super PAC called Solutions 2012, said the group’s fundraiser, Jerry Seppala, “does have a relationship with Sheldon,” but stressed he “won’t comment on our contacts with any specific donor or whether anyone particular person has given.” And Craig Bachler, an official at a third super PAC called Spirit of America Solutions that is generally supportive of — but does not intend to endorse — Gingrich, also declined to discuss Adelson specifically. But he did add suggestively that his group got “a major commitment out of Nevada that the individual is big into donating money to Newt and I think is sharing the wealth with not just one PAC.” While Burkett’s group is expected to emerge as the biggest pro-Gingrich super PAC, it’s unclear to which super PAC Adelson made the $20 million planned commitment, or how much money he intended to give directly versus raise through his network. But a former official at one of Gingrich’s groups who is not involved in the presidential campaign or super PACs said that if Adelson “does end up giving big, he could really make a significant impact on this election.” The focus on Adelson underscores the increasing influence of megadonors in the new campaign finance environment as well as the promise and challenges in quickly mounting a robust outside effort to support Gingrich. A competition between the pro-Gingrich groups for cash and attention could confuse donors and dilute the potential impact of each, and leave them at a disadvantage to the outside efforts boosting Mitt Romney and Rick Perry, which quickly coalesced around single, preferred super PACs. “We’re really in hyper speed now with these super PACs where, in a universe of unlimited contributions, you can get seed money and be up and running with ads in a few days, particularly if a candidate gets hot like Newt Gingrich is now,” said Michael Toner, a former Federal Election Commission chairman. But there’s also “great potential for donor confusion, because [of] the sheer volume of these super PACs with names that are kind of similar,” warned Toner, who credited allies of Romney, Perry and President Barack Obama with quickly rallying behind a single respective super PAC for each candidate. “And that’s not easy to do” because of rules barring campaigns from coordinatingwith super PACs, said Toner, who represented former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty’s bid for the GOP nomination, which ended amid paltry fundraising and poll numbers. “A super PAC is probably more valuable to someone like Newt Gingrich because he doesn’t have the organizational and financial resources of some of the other top-tier candidates.” Yet many of Gingrich’s wealthy patrons aligned themselves with his rivals for the GOP presidential nomination when his campaign struggled earlier this year. A POLITICO analysis of FEC and IRS filings found that of the 16 donors who contributed $100,000 or more to American Solutions and also gave to a 2012 GOP presidential campaign or campaigns, only six gave to Gingrich, including Adelson. To be sure, the analysis only covers presidential campaign donations through the end of September, weeks before Gingrich’s campaign began the unlikely surge that has landed him at the top of the polls. But his main rival, former Massachusetts Gov. Romney, and the super PAC supporting him, Restore Our Future, also have been working to win support from megadonors and have secured backing from some who had given big to American Solutions for Winning the Future. For instance, real estate magnate Harlan Crow, whose company had given $100,000 to Gingrich’s group, this month threw a major fundraiser at his Dallas mansion for Romney. Crow, who had been a longtime donor to Texas Gov. Perry’s gubernatorial campaigns and had given to the presidential campaigns of former Govs. Pawlenty and Jon Huntsman of Utah, told The Wall Street Journal that “many folks who supported [Perry’s presidential campaign] are now reconsidering.” There also are a handful of megadonors who cut big checks to American Solutions but have limited their disclosed presidential contributions to Romney’s campaign, including the recently deceased Cincinnati billionaire Carl Lindner Jr., who along with his widow Edyth Lindner had donated $690,000 to the Gingrich group. Other major Newt World donors who have either given to, or signaled support for, Romney include personal investing billionaire Charles Schwab (who gave $200,000 to American Solutions), produce wholesaler Robert Castellini ($170,000), Johnson & Johnson heir Robert Wood Johnson IV ($75,000), New York finance titan John Whitehead ($30,000), Florida mall developer Mel Sembler ($30,000) and Home Depot investor Ken Langone ($25,000). Perry, too, has made some headway with major Gingrich donors, getting contributions from the executives of Oklahoma’s Devon Energy (which had given $625,000 to American Solutions) and Houston’s Plains Exploration & Production Company ($200,000). Of course, it’s difficult to gauge which donors will write big checks to super PACs. So far, only one major presidential super PAC has disclosed donations — the pro-Romney Restore Our Future, which raised $12.2 million in the first half of the year entirely from 90 high-dollar contributors. The major pro-Perry super PAC, Make Us Great Again, had set a $55 million budget but initially looked like it might have to fight for big donor cash with at least five other pro-Perry super PACs. The groups swiped at one another as Perry prepared to enter the race, but Make Us Great Again asserted its place as the dominant outside group in an August email from its founders, including a close Perry confidant named Mike Toomey. “Many other groups are coming forward to draft and support the governor,” wrote Toomey and his co-founders. “Our advice is to avoid any other group claiming to be ‘the’ pro-Perry independent effort and, when the timing is right, to support Make Us Great Again.” There won’t be any official signal like that from Newt World, predicted the former official from a Gingrich group, as well as the ex-Gingrich aide. In separate interviews, each said they expected a competition between the various groups, but gave an edge to Winning Our Future, thanks to Burkett’s ties to major donors to American Solutions for Winning the Future. “I don’t think there will be a group that is ‘crowned’ to be the ‘official’ group. That will come with whichever group can prove their ability to fundraise and be successful,” said the ex-aide, asserting “there is plenty of money to be raised for everyone.”

Newt's loot: Billionaire commits $20M

By: Maggie Haberman and Kenneth P. Vogel

December 15, 2011 01:49 PM EST

Casino magnate Sheldon Adelson is planning to direct $20 million to an outside group backing Newt Gingrich’s presidential campaign, multiple sources told POLITICO — the first answer to urgent pleas from allies to the former speaker’s longtime billionaire supporters.

After leaving Congress, Gingrich cultivated a network of a few dozen über-wealthy backers who poured tens of millions of dollars into a network of groups that helped him maintain a foothold in politics. Now, operatives supporting his presidential campaign are asking those same donors to write fat checks to a suite of new super PACs they hope can spend big on ads to offset Gingrich campaign fundraising that had lagged behind his rivals’.

Adelson is considered the prized get for pro-Gingrich groups.

Adelson spokesman Ron Reese denied the $20 million commitment, saying “there’s no truth to any speculation that Mr. Adelson has made a commitment to either contribute or raise this amount of money.”

Reese declined to comment on potential future political giving by Adelson on behalf of Gingrich or in general, saying Adelson doesn’t talk about his political activities. Many major donors prefer to keep their activity low-profile, though federal rules require super PACs to disclose their donors in the coming weeks.

Sources with direct knowledge of the $20 million figure, who requested anonymity, told POLITICO that Adelson planned to cut a check to one of the PACs as soon as this week.

A major contribution from Adelson would enable the recipient group to start airing ads in Iowa to counter a weeklong anti-Gingrich on-air assault that is already taking a toll on his front-runner status in the Hawkeye State, according to private and public polling.

Adelson and his wife Miriam Adelson each contributed the $2,500 maximum to Gingrich’s campaign for the Republican presidential nomination in August. But there weren’t many options for them and other wealthy donors looking to give more to help Gingrich through the summer, when his campaign was on life support.

That changed as Gingrich’s campaign started surging last month, prompting his allies to create new outside groups known as super PACs that can accept unlimited funds to air ads supporting him.

Perhaps the leading player in the pro-Gingrich super PAC space, Winning Our Future, was unveiled this week and is being headed by Becky Burkett, who was the lead fundraiser for Gingrich’s main political vehicle over the past few years, the fundraising juggernaut American Solutions for Winning the Future.

That group raised $54 million — including $7.7 million from Adelson — between its late 2006 creation and its collapsethis year after Gingrich left it to run for president, according to Internal Revenue Service filings.

On Tuesday, Burkett declined to detail her relationship with Adelson, telling POLITICO, “I certainly know him through American Solutions,” but added, “I have not spoken to him” about Winning Our Future.

Charlie Smith, who runs another new pro-Gingrich super PAC called Solutions 2012, said the group’s fundraiser, Jerry Seppala, “does have a relationship with Sheldon,” but stressed he “won’t comment on our contacts with any specific donor or whether anyone particular person has given.”

And Craig Bachler, an official at a third super PAC called Spirit of America Solutions that is generally supportive of — but does not intend to endorse — Gingrich, also declined to discuss Adelson specifically. But he did add suggestively that his group got “a major commitment out of Nevada that the individual is big into donating money to Newt and I think is sharing the wealth with not just one PAC.”

While Burkett’s group is expected to emerge as the biggest pro-Gingrich super PAC, it’s unclear to which super PAC Adelson made the $20 million planned commitment, or how much money he intended to give directly versus raise through his network.

But a former official at one of Gingrich’s groups who is not involved in the presidential campaign or super PACs said that if Adelson “does end up giving big, he could really make a significant impact on this election.”

The focus on Adelson underscores the increasing influence of megadonors in the new campaign finance environment as well as the promise and challenges in quickly mounting a robust outside effort to support Gingrich.

A competition between the pro-Gingrich groups for cash and attention could confuse donors and dilute the potential impact of each, and leave them at a disadvantage to the outside efforts boosting Mitt Romney and Rick Perry, which quickly coalesced around single, preferred super PACs.

“We’re really in hyper speed now with these super PACs where, in a universe of unlimited contributions, you can get seed money and be up and running with ads in a few days, particularly if a candidate gets hot like Newt Gingrich is now,” said Michael Toner, a former Federal Election Commission chairman. But there’s also “great potential for donor confusion, because [of] the sheer volume of these super PACs with names that are kind of similar,” warned Toner, who credited allies of Romney, Perry and President Barack Obama with quickly rallying behind a single respective super PAC for each candidate.

“And that’s not easy to do” because of rules barring campaigns from coordinatingwith super PACs, said Toner, who represented former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty’s bid for the GOP nomination, which ended amid paltry fundraising and poll numbers. “A super PAC is probably more valuable to someone like Newt Gingrich because he doesn’t have the organizational and financial resources of some of the other top-tier candidates.”

Yet many of Gingrich’s wealthy patrons aligned themselves with his rivals for the GOP presidential nomination when his campaign struggled earlier this year.

A POLITICO analysis of FEC and IRS filings found that of the 16 donors who contributed $100,000 or more to American Solutions and also gave to a 2012 GOP presidential campaign or campaigns, only six gave to Gingrich, including Adelson.

To be sure, the analysis only covers presidential campaign donations through the end of September, weeks before Gingrich’s campaign began the unlikely surge that has landed him at the top of the polls.

But his main rival, former Massachusetts Gov. Romney, and the super PAC supporting him, Restore Our Future, also have been working to win support from megadonors and have secured backing from some who had given big to American Solutions for Winning the Future.

For instance, real estate magnate Harlan Crow, whose company had given $100,000 to Gingrich’s group, this month threw a major fundraiser at his Dallas mansion for Romney.

Crow, who had been a longtime donor to Texas Gov. Perry’s gubernatorial campaigns and had given to the presidential campaigns of former Govs. Pawlenty and Jon Huntsman of Utah, told The Wall Street Journal that “many folks who supported [Perry’s presidential campaign] are now reconsidering.”

There also are a handful of megadonors who cut big checks to American Solutions but have limited their disclosed presidential contributions to Romney’s campaign, including the recently deceased Cincinnati billionaire Carl Lindner Jr., who along with his widow Edyth Lindner had donated $690,000 to the Gingrich group.

Other major Newt World donors who have either given to, or signaled support for, Romney include personal investing billionaire Charles Schwab (who gave $200,000 to American Solutions), produce wholesaler Robert Castellini ($170,000), Johnson & Johnson heir Robert Wood Johnson IV ($75,000), New York finance titan John Whitehead ($30,000), Florida mall developer Mel Sembler ($30,000) and Home Depot investor Ken Langone ($25,000).

Perry, too, has made some headway with major Gingrich donors, getting contributions from the executives of Oklahoma’s Devon Energy (which had given $625,000 to American Solutions) and Houston’s Plains Exploration & Production Company ($200,000).

Of course, it’s difficult to gauge which donors will write big checks to super PACs. So far, only one major presidential super PAC has disclosed donations — the pro-Romney Restore Our Future, which raised $12.2 million in the first half of the year entirely from 90 high-dollar contributors.

The major pro-Perry super PAC, Make Us Great Again, had set a $55 million budget but initially looked like it might have to fight for big donor cash with at least five other pro-Perry super PACs.

The groups swiped at one another as Perry prepared to enter the race, but Make Us Great Again asserted its place as the dominant outside group in an August email from its founders, including a close Perry confidant named Mike Toomey.

“Many other groups are coming forward to draft and support the governor,” wrote Toomey and his co-founders. “Our advice is to avoid any other group claiming to be ‘the’ pro-Perry independent effort and, when the timing is right, to support Make Us Great Again.”

There won’t be any official signal like that from Newt World, predicted the former official from a Gingrich group, as well as the ex-Gingrich aide. In separate interviews, each said they expected a competition between the various groups, but gave an edge to Winning Our Future, thanks to Burkett’s ties to major donors to American Solutions for Winning the Future.

“I don’t think there will be a group that is ‘crowned’ to be the ‘official’ group. That will come with whichever group can prove their ability to fundraise and be successful,” said the ex-aide, asserting “there is plenty of money to be raised for everyone.”