Sheldon Adelson To Lavish $71 Million In Casino Money On GOP Super PACS, Nonprofits

Las Vegas Sands Chairman and CEO Sheldon Adelson speaks at a news conference for the Sands Cotai Central in Macau Wednesday, April 12, 2012. (AP Photo/Kin Cheung)

HuffPost

Peter H. Stone

Posted: 06/16/2012 12:24 am Updated: 06/16/2012  2:06 am

WASHINGTON — Casino billionaire Sheldon Adelson, whose net worth makes him one of the world’s richest men, is on a check-writing spree that will soon bring his total political contributions in this election cycle to at least $71 million, according to sources familiar with his spending. That money is spread across the spectrum of GOP super PACs, which are required to disclose donors, and nonprofits, which are not.

Adelson and his wife, Miriam, along with other family donations, have already reached $36 million, including $10 million to the Romney-backing super PAC Restore Our Future that was reported this week. But two GOP fundraisers familiar with his plans say that Adelson has given or pledged at least $35 million more to three conservative nonprofit groups: the Karl Rove-linked Crossroads GPS, another with ties to billionaires Charles and David Koch and a third with links to House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.).

Adelson, 78, is a staunch supporter of the Israeli right and a strong foe of American unions. In recent years, Adelson has been a major financier of GOP-allied groups, but has emerged this year as the consummate super donor in the wake of 2010 court rulings that permitted corporations, unions and individuals to supply unlimited amounts of money, sometimes anonymously, to independent groups that can advocate directly for candidates.

Adelson has told friends that he might give as much as $100 million in donations this year in support of GOP candidates and conservative issues. That target now seems easily within reach and could be surpassed, say the two GOP fundraisers with ties to the casino magnate.

Crossroads GPS — founded by GOP consultants Rove and Ed Gillespie in 2010 alongside the super PAC American Crossroads — could wind up as the major recipient of the casino titan’s largess, due to Adelson’s longstanding and close ties to Rove. Crossroads GPS has already received one $10 million cash infusion this cycle from Adelson, who, according to the two GOP fundraisers, recently committed to another donation of the same amount.

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Payroll Tax Cut Fight: House GOP Leadership Offers 10-Month Extension Without Offsets

Huff Post- First Posted: 02/13/2012  2:37 pm Updated: 02/13/2012  3:37 pm

By- Luke Johnson and Michael McAuliff

WASHINGTON — House GOP leaders announced Monday they were putting forward a “backup plan” that would extend the payroll tax cut for ten months, while cleaving it from a similar extension of unemployment insurance benefits and what’s known as the “doc fix,” a measure needed to prevent dramatic cuts in Medicare reimbursements. The plan would not be offset by cuts elsewhere, the announcement said, meaning the cost of the tax cut would be added to the deficit.

The announcement, made quietly on a day Washington is digesting the president’s budget proposal, is a stark reversal. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) took the floor shortly after the statement was emailed to reporters and spoke only of the budget.

“Because the president and Senate Democratic leaders have not allowed their conferees to support a responsible bipartisan agreement, today House Republicans will introduce a backup plan that would simply extend the payroll tax holiday for the remainder of the year while the conference negotiations continue regarding offsets, unemployment insurance, and the ‘doc fix,'” said Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) and Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) in a statement.

The House leaders said in the statement that the plan was not their “first choice.”

“If Democrats continue to refuse to negotiate in good faith, Republicans may schedule this measure for House consideration later this week pending a conversation with our members. Democrats’ refusal to agree to any spending cuts in the conference committee has made it necessary for us to prepare this fallback option to protect small business job creators and ensure taxes don’t go up on middle class workers.”

A Democratic aide familiar with the talks said that Republican leadership had privately conceded the issue in negotiations on Friday, though word had not leaked out over the weekend.

“Whether the payroll tax cut moves separately or as part of the larger package, the Republicans have already said they will give up trying to pay for it by slashing medicare or with other harmful cuts,” said the aide.

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Republicans Lack the Seriousness to Govern

The Republicans shouldn’t be taken seriously anymore.

It seems obvious, but in order to be taken seriously, politicians have to be, you know, serious. Not just in terms of personality or behavior, but primarily in terms of policy and lawmaking. If a politician refuses to propose serious ideas and only pumps out nonsensical bumper-sticker sloganeering, fear-based histrionics or symbolic legislative measures that pander to kneejerk interest groups, then he or she ought to be summarily refused the privilege of our deference, respect and, especially, our vote.

Very few modern Republicans and conservatives qualify. They fail the seriousness test at almost every level — from the Republican leadership on down the line.

Take Eric Cantor, for example. The House Majority Leader. The second most powerful Republican in Washington. Whenever I write about Eric Cantor, I’m generally met with the reaction of crickets chirping. He’s not as well-known or as incendiary as Sarah Palin or Glenn Beck. But he’s exponentially more important, and so we have to pay attention to what he’s doing.

You might recall how Cantor, along with 228 House Republicans, permanently attached their names to proven scam-artist James O’Keefe by voting to de-fund NPR in reaction to O’Keefe’s latest sting video. Like all of O’Keefe’s work, the NPR video was selectively and deceptively edited to make it seem as though an NPR executive was expressing personal views about tea party Republicans. Within days of the release of the video, Eric Cantor publicly embraced O’Keefe and expressed outrage at the dubiously-attained videotape. In his public remarks, Cantor announced the effort to de-fund NPR. Later, the House successfully voted to codify the work of a known fraud.

Should Eric Cantor really be taken seriously? No way. And it gets worse.

Yesterday, Cantor announced a piece of legislation that might as well legalize hobbit marriage and cut the budget for time-traveling DeLoreans. It’s just that fantastical.

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Democrats: Time To Get Loud And Fearless

Here’s a major reason why the Republicans are still a viable party: they don’t mind getting loud. They’re willing to flagrantly lie out loud, while also making a huge production out of insignificant and contradictory nonsense that heretofore was never even considered to be a political trespass — shamelessly and unapologetically amplifying it all to a level of noise that forces the press and voters alike to pay attention.

The Democrats could learn a thing or two about this. More presently.

For all of their faults, the Republicans are absolutely using the whole political animal, so to speak. Like an ancient tribe of hunter-gatherers, they’re somehow able to butcher every carcass and turn all of the lies, gaffes and misstatements into something useful. Something that will command attention. Put another way, the Republican strategy seems to be: there’s no such thing as bad press, so get loud.

Over the weekend, Sarah Palin appeared in Nashville at the Tea Party convention and while criticizing the president for using a teleprompter — a device that all politicians, presidents and TV personalities have used since the technology was first invented — she had the words “tax cuts” scrawled on her hand or else there was a chance she might forget.

A Republican who might forget to say “tax cuts” is like a preacher who might forget to say “Jesus Christ.” But there she was. The leader of the Republican Party — so ill-prepared, so incapable of even the most basic political skills that she had to write a secret crib sheet on her hand to help her remember to say “tax cuts.” Say nothing of the fact that Miss Drill-Baby-Drill had to write “energy” on her hand also.

In her defense, I understand Lincoln had to write “slavery” and “Civil War” on his hand so he wouldn’t forget. So there’s that.

And yet the Republicans don’t mind getting loud about it. She’s just like regular folks, they say. She’s just like you, they say. This makes her qualified to be president, they say. (The Republicans are even loud about repeating colossal mistakes. Even after George W. Bush nearly destroyed the Republican brand, they’re doubling down on the stupid by elevating Sarah Palin. Just remarkable.)

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Republicans: Same Old Strategy & How To Lose Elections…

Republicans Launch Multiple Rebranding Efforts Led by Same Unpopular People and Ideas that Keep Losing Elections

FDL- By: Blue Texan Monday May 4, 2009 10:30 am

After four months of Republicans calling Obama every name in the book and less than a few weeks removed from the National Day of Teabagging That Would Change Everything, Obama is still hugely popular. Not a dent.

So since the Full Rushbo obviously didn’t work, Republicans are panicking, and they’re polishing the turd retooling their message.

WaPo:

National Republican leaders gathered in Northern Virginia over the weekend for the first in a series of town halls designed to begin the long process of re-making the GOP’s badly tattered image.

House Minority Whip Eric Cantor and former governors Jeb Bush (Fla.) and Mitt Romney (Mass.) — along with more than 100 attendees — crowded in a pizza joint in Arlington on Saturday to make the case that the party is down but not out.

Politico:

Ed Gillespie, the former GOP chairman and counselor to President George W. Bush, and top pollster Whit Ayres on Tuesday are launching Resurgent Republic, a group aimed at shaping the debate as the party regenerates itself for the upcoming elections.

…

Resurgent Republic’s Advisory Board includes Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, George Allen, Bill Paxon, Vin Weber and Mary Matalin.

MORE HERE

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