Sheldon and Miriam Adelson leave a Mitt Romney speech in Jerusalem, July 29, 2012.
(Photo: Getty Images)
News reports have placed Sheldon and Miriam Adelson’s donations during this election cycle at at least $70 million and perhaps as much as $100 million. According to The Center for Responsive Politics, the couple gave $53,066,147 to “outside spending groups,” or Super PACs, during the election. Besides their well publicized support for Mitt Romney (and Newt Gingrich before him), they also devoted considerable funds to an array of Republicans who endorse their right-wing, pro-settler Israeli politics.
Here’s where the Adelsons’ money went and whether they won or lost on their investment:
- $20 million to Mitt Romney Super PAC Restore our Future (LOST)
- $20 million to Newt Gingrich Super Pac Winning our Future (LOST)
- $5 million to the YG Action Fund which supported Allen West in his race against Patrick Murphy (LOST) and worked to defeat Lois Frankel who went up against Adam Hasner (LOST).
- $5 million to Congressional Leadership Fund which worked to defeat Lois Capps (LOST), who is commonly regarded as a critic of Israel by the right wing, and ex-Woman in Black activist Kyrsten Sinema (LOST).
- $2 million to Freedom Pac to help elect Connie Mack (LOST) and defeat Patrick Murphy in his race with Allen West (LOST).
- $1.5 million to the Independence Virginia PAC to help defeat Tim Kaine in the Virginia Senate race. (LOST)
- $ 1 million to Patriot Prosperity PAC to support Shmuley Boteach against Bill Pascrell (LOST)
- $ 1 million to Treasure Coast Jobs Coalition which worked to defeat Patrick Murphy (LOST)
- And oddly $190,000 to the Hispanic Leadership Fund Action Super PAC, where the Las Vegas Sands is the PAC’s only donor and all the money went to Mitt Romney. (LOST)
Mr President, congratulations! Your first job should now be to declare AIPAC a foreign agent under the law and to be registered as such. Then it will be unable to influence US foreign policy, or anything else. That one action alone will be a significant signal that American government is democratic and no longer run by lobbyists.
Adelson has so much money that he hardly knows what to do with it all.
Here’s a simple calculation: Adelson’s net worth is about $25 billion. The average American household has a net worth of $50K. So relative to the net worth, when Adelson gives $1M, that is equivalent to the average American giving $2.
This year Sheldon forked over $100 Million, similar to the average American forking over $200, which is less than $1/day: enough to be noticed, but not enough to hurt.
Couldn’t happen to a better guy. Actually, he only lost a few pennies, chump change to him.
Adrian whatshername on one of the network TV channels just said now Obama has to go to Israel. Nobody said, no, he’s gotta go visit the West Bank and Gaza, and dust off his Cairo Speech, become a real leader in his last term and tell Israel if the settlements aren’t removed no more aid or diplomatic cover. He can speak right over the head of AIPAC, directly to the new face of America. He could even add Jerusalem is not Israel’s.
How much of that was tax-deductible?
He got a public kick in the teeth for pimping out the American constitution.
And our founding fathers are dancing in their graves about this.