Democratic Party-linked thinktank issues report on Adelson’s influence that never mentions Israel

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This is shocking. The liberal thinktank Center for American Progress, which has links to the Democratic Party, issued a lengthy report on the Sheldon Adelson primary two months back, faulting Republican candidates for pandering to the casino mogul.

Search that report for the words Israel and Iran. They don’t appear! (And I’m someone who eschews boldface.)

The piece was written by Ryan Erickson, Lauren Harmon, and Tiffany Germain; and it has the gall to suggest that these candidates are fashioning conservative ideas for Adelson’s benefit.

Conservative policies for America’s political money king

In hopes of winning the “Sheldon Adelson Primary,” GOP candidates and hopefuls are reaching out to the mogul in Las Vegas to showcase their conservative ideas.

CAP– whose motto is “Progressive ideas for a strong, just, and free America”– then lists the Republican candidates’ ideas for tax reform, their pro-life positions, stances against the minimum wage and against the belief in climate change.

This is pure bullshit. And a lie. Adelson is pro-abortion! “I’m basically a social liberal,” he told the Wall Street Journal. “I’m pro-choice … I’m pro-Dream Act.” He doesn’t care about climate change. He’s buying Republican presidential candidates because he cares more about Israel than anything else. He wishes he served in the Israeli army, he wants to nuke Iran.

And CAP can’t even mention Israel or Iran!

Mendacity and cowardice. And there’s a reason for the omissions: because Democrats need to raise pro-Israel money, too, and their party organs can’t be seen as criticizing Israel. That’s why CAP censored Ali Gharib and Eli Clifton a couple years ago when they dared to call out AIPAC, the Israel lobby group, on Iran.

And let’s be clear: this is the pressure that Hillary Clinton is under; and that Chris Matthews, to his credit, has been bucking.

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Someone needs to take Adelson on, because he’s an easy target who would resonate with many demographic groups, military, progressives, foreign policy realists, Libertarians, anti-Citizens United, academia, the BDS movement. I would think journalists would like to take him on, given his proposal to Haim Saban that the two of them together, launch an unfriendly takeover of the NYTimes to force it to become more Pro-Israel, if there are journalists left in the MSM.

You should dig deeper into this, Phil, how is such a report possible?

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RE: “He’s buying Republican presidential candidates because he cares more about Israel than anything else.” ~ Weiss

MY COMMENT: Yes, and he absolutely despises unions! ! !

SEE: “Why GOP Mega-Donor Sheldon Adelson Is Mad, Bad and a Danger to the Republic”, By Rick Perlstein, Rolling Stone, 4/10/12

[EXCERPTS] . . . Adelson’s anti-union mania (I would argue) is the most important thing to know about him. For it reveals just how crazy, and how unscrupulous, the man is.
Let’s start at the very beginning. Adelson remembers meeting Gingrich in Washington in 1995, when Gingrich was House Speaker and Adelson was lobbying to get the U.S. embassy in Israel moved from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. Other reports have them being introduced in 1996 by a far-right anti-union operative in Nevada who worked for Adelson. Details of the subsequent courtship are murky, although the huge favor Gingrich did for Adelson in 1996 by turning off a federal investigation of the gambling industry probably did a lot to cement their friendship.
Two years later, Nevada conservatives sponsored a “Paycheck Protection” ballot initiative – the right-wing term for measures weakening unions by banning them from automatically deducting dues from members’ pay. Adelson was gung-ho for it – and “would spend any amount of money,” D. Taylor, secretary-treasurer of Las Vegas’s Culinary Workers Union Local 226, told me . . .
. . . In 1999, Adelson closed one casino, the Sands, and completed work on a new one, the Venetian, stiffing so many contractors that there were at one time 366 liens against the property. Taylor, of the Culinary Workers, said he and his colleagues presumed that “like every other casino that had done that, workers in the [closed] hotel would be given priority when the [new] hotel was built.” Instead, Adelson refused even to talk. All this, in a union town like Vegas, was unprecedented. “Even when you’re having battles, you continue to have talks. Shit, we’re talking to the North Koreans right now!” he told me. “The Israelis talk to the Arabs. Talking doesn’t necessarily solve anything, but at least you understand the other guy’s position.” Adelson, not much interested in understanding the other guy’s position, proceeded to launch a campaign against the Culinary Workers that Taylor calls “beyond aggressive.”
Right before the grand opening of the Venetian, in 1999, the Culinary Workers staged a demonstration on the public sidewalk out front. Adelson told the cops to start making arrests; the cops refused. Glen Arnodo, an official at
the union at the time, relates what happened next: “I was standing on the sidewalk and they had two security guards say I was on private property, and if I didn’t move they’d have to put me under ‘citizen’s arrest.’ I ignored them.” The guards once again told the police to arrest Arnodo and again, he says, they refused. The Civil Rights hero Rep. John Lewis, in town to support the rally, said the whole thing reminded him of living in the South during Jim Crow. . .
. . . Did I mention Adelson is nuts? But don’t take my word for it – it was George W. Bush who called him “some crazy Jewish billionaire.” . . .

ENTIRE ARTICLE – http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/national-affairs/why-gop-mega-donor-sheldon-adelson-is-mad-bad-and-a-danger-to-the-republic-20120410

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Nathan Guttman over at The Forward has an exclusive you’re gonna love.

It appears that Adelson has chosen… drumroll please… none other than David Borg, (Jewish) head of the Christian Zionist “Christians United For Israel” (CUFI) to head the Campus Maccabees’ anti-BDS drive!

That’s right, a leading apologist for crackpot Pastor John Hagee is going to crush BDS forces on the nation’s campuses! Or so Sheldon Adelson imagines. The rest of us can easily picture liberal Zionist students running and screaming the other way –toward the pro-BDS camp.

Thanks a billion, Sheldon!

http://forward.com/news/311662/leader-of-christian-zionists-named-head-of-adelson-campus-anti-bds-group/

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