It’s an unlikely sight at one of the biggest US military bases: young families lining up and waiting patiently outside a warehouse for free gifts to slip under the Christmas tree.
Times are tough as much for military families as for anyone else in America this Christmas, making donated toys for the children — from teddy bears and Barbies to board games and bicycles — more welcome than ever.
IF BY ‘ENTREPRENEURSHIP’ YOU MEAN ‘LOWER TAXES FOR BILLIONAIRES’
Billionaire energy businessman William Koch, whose brothers finance an array of conservative political causes, directed another $1 million into a “super PAC” backing GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney, according to new campaign finance records filed Friday. The donation to Restore Our Future was made through Huron Carbon, a subsidiary of Oxbow Carbon, a privately held coal and petroleum supplier that Koch founded and runs. The contribution means that Koch has steered at least $2 million to the super PAC: Last year, Oxbow Carbon gave $750,000 to Restore Our Future, while Koch personally gave the group $250,000. […] “Bill Koch is becoming more engaged because he wants to see entrepreneurship in this country improve,”spokesman Brad Goldstein said Friday. “He has known Mitt Romney for more than three decades and believes Mitt Romney possesses the business skills needed to turn our economy around.” [latimes.com]
GOP Groups Plan $1 BILLION Push for Romney (that’s billion, with a B) — “Republican super PACs and other outside groups shaped by a loose network of prominent conservatives — including Karl Rove, the Koch brothers and Tom Donohue of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce — plan to spend roughly $1 billion on November’s elections for the White House and control of Congress,” Politico reports. “That total includes previously undisclosed plans for newly aggressive spending by the Koch brothers, who are steering funding to build sophisticated, county-by-county operations in key states… Koch-related organizations plan to spend about $400 million ahead of the 2012 elections — twice what they had been expected to commit.” – Political Wire
Right-Wing Billionaires Behind Mitt Romney (and the GOP’s capitulation to Big Money) – In the primary season alone, Romney’s rich friends invested $52 million in his Super PAC, Restore Our Future – a number that’s expected to more than double in the coming months. This unprecedented infusion of money from America’s monied elites underscores the radical transformation of the Republican Party, which has made defending the interests of 0.0001 percent the basis of its entire platform.“Money buys power,” the Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman observed recently, “and the increasing wealth of a tiny minority has effectively bought the allegiance of one of our two major political parties.” In short, the political polarization and gridlock in Washington are a direct result of the GOP’s capitulation to Big Money. – Tim Dickinson | Rolling Stone
Mitt Romney is meeting with Sheldon Adelson — the billionaire casino magnate and big Newt-Gingrich supporting super-PAC donor — in Las Vegas on Tuesday, according to CBS News and CNN. …Adelson and his wife, Miriam, gave $20 million to Winning Our Future, the pro-Gingrich super PAC. — HuffPo
Axelrod: A handful of plutocrats are trying to buy the United States – “There was a report this morning that the Republican Super PACs, apart from Romney and apart from his own super PAC, intend to spend a billion dollars in this campaign setting up shadow state organizations—district-wide organizations—as well as running media. So a handful of plutocrats of billionaires with a special interest agenda are going to try and buy this government in this election, and the stakes of that are pretty profound. I’m obviously concerned about the implications for our race, but we’ve braced ourselves and we’ve been talking about this for some time. It’s a concern. It’s one of my big concerns. But for congressional candidates, it’s gotta be a nightmare. We saw in the last election, in the last 3 weeks of those campaigns, Super PACs swooped in and spent huge amounts of money in the final 3 weeks to influence those congressional races and turned a lot of races with their money. I think you can anticipate that in spades this year.” –Raw Story
GOP Groups Plan $1 BILLION Push for Romney (that’s billion, with a B) – Political Wire
Political Wire:A well-placed source in the Sheldon Adelson camp tells Forbes that further donations from the casino billionaire to Super PACs supporting Mitt Romney will be “limitless.” The source says Adelson will do “whatever it takes” to defeat President Obama and that “no price is too high” to protect the U.S. from what he sees as Obama’s “socialization” of America.
What’s $100 million to Sheldon Adelson? As NPR White House correspondent Ari Shapiro notes today, $100 million constitutes the same percentage of Adelson’s wealth that $300 to $400 does for normal Americans. As Shapiro tweets: “Sheldon Adelson says he may spend $100m on this presidential race. As a % of wealth, that would be like a typical US family giving $360.” — The Atlantic
Sam Stein reports on why Mitch McConnell wants to protect the very wealthy from your “scrutiny” and “backlash” –
In a series of speeches and interviews over the past day, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) argued against adding a further layer of disclosure to the campaign finance system, suggesting that the Obama administration would use it to browbeat political opponents.
The Kentucky Republican has long been one of Congress’ foremost advocates of a far-reaching interpretation of First Amendment rights. And his remarks, first to Fox News, then to the Faith and Freedom Conference and finally to the American Enterprise Institute, followed in that vein.
…Donors to politically active nonprofit groups, he said, do not deserve to be subjected to public scrutiny or backlash.
That’s really very interesting, considering that Buzzfeed (Romney’s personal online PR firm) is reporting that Santorum’s old sugar daddy, Foster Friess, says he’s going to donate to Romney’s campaign “undercover:”
“Well I’m going to do that more undercover, I’m going to do it through a lot of c4′s so it’s not so high profile,” Friess said at the Faith and Freedom Conference, where he is scheduled to speak on Saturday. “I was stunned to see how much attention — I had no idea what happened, I must have had 60 or 70 interviews.” “So I think if I do it through c4′s, I can keep a lower profile which is probably better.” Friess explained the tactic further. “If you give to a c4, it doesn’t get disclosed,” Friess said. ”If you give to a c4, it doesn’t get disclosed,” Friess said. “So if I give money to various organizations, nobody knows what I’m giving. Even my wife won’t know.”
Notice they were both at the Faith and Freedom Conference.
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IF BY ‘ENTREPRENEURSHIP’ YOU MEAN ‘LOWER TAXES FOR BILLIONAIRES’
Billionaire energy businessman William Koch, whose brothers finance an array of conservative political causes, directed another $1 million into a “super PAC” backing GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney, according to new campaign finance records filed Friday. The donation to Restore Our Future was made through Huron Carbon, a subsidiary of Oxbow Carbon, a privately held coal and petroleum supplier that Koch founded and runs. The contribution means that Koch has steered at least $2 million to the super PAC: Last year, Oxbow Carbon gave $750,000 to Restore Our Future, while Koch personally gave the group $250,000. […] “Bill Koch is becoming more engaged because he wants to see entrepreneurship in this country improve,”spokesman Brad Goldstein said Friday. “He has known Mitt Romney for more than three decades and believes Mitt Romney possesses the business skills needed to turn our economy around.” [latimes.com]
Romney fundraising pace picks up
Romney Trails Obama, Bush With Small-Dollar Donors – this should tell you who’d like to buy the White House.](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m2u7vfKMvH1qf10tro1_250.jpg)
