Sheldon Adelson

Family members of Las Vegas Sands casino magnate Sheldon Adelson donated $1 million last year to an independent group supporting presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich, in addition to the $10 million that Adelson and his wife, Miriam, have given the super PAC this year. Of the $2 million in donations reported through the end of 2011 by the Winning Our Future political action committee, which backs Gingrich's campaign, half came from the daughters and son-in-law of Miriam Adelson, according to filings...

Federal Election Commission reports filed Thursday reveal manic activity in the final days of the 2012 campaign, with a wave of last-minute donations fueling massive spending. President Obama's campaign received contributions from 1.3 million donors in the last two weeks of the campaign and spent more than $100 million during that period. Republican Mitt Romney's campaign raised $85.9 million during the same period from nearly 600,000 donors. Together, the campaigns spent more than $2 billion, part of...

The way casino magnate Sheldon Adelson remembers it, he and his wife, Miriam, met then-House Speaker Newt Gingrich in 1995 in the majestic Capitol Rotunda as they made their way through the building while lobbying for a bill to move the U.S. Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. Nearly two decades later, Gingrich, on the campaign trail, has promised that his first executive order as president would be the embassy move, long a priority of ardent Israel supporters such as the...

WHEN IT COMES to the corrosive influence of money in politics, the 2012 campaign has presented a trifecta of troubling developments. They are, in ascending order of worry: the complete collapse of the presidential public financing system set up in the wake of Watergate; the explosion of the super PAC political committees, which are allowed to take unlimited checks to finance independent expenditures for or against particular candidates; and the proliferation...

When casino magnate Sheldon Adelson switched his support from Newt Gingrich to Mitt Romney during the spring primaries, the billionaire and the candidate were eager to shed their skepticism of each other. If Adelson was going to give a political campaign more money than anyone ever had, he wanted to be certain Romney would join him in steadfast support of Israel. And Romney, according to friends of both, sought assurance that Adelson wouldn't embarrass him. Since then, Adelson has joined Romney...

Sheldon Adelson: 1. Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee: 0. That's how the political scoreboard read after a highly unusual public apology that the House Democrats' campaign arm offered to the billionaire casino mogul — and Republican mega-donor — over allegations of, what else, Chinese prostitution. At issue was an Associated Press report that a former, and disgruntled, Adelson employee had alleged in court documents that his onetime boss was aware of...

The vast advocacy and fundraising operation that former House speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) built after leaving Capitol Hill more than a decade ago has ceased to exist — a casualty of Gingrich's decision to run for president in 2012. According to an Aug. 1 filing with the Internal Revenue Service, American Solutions for Winning the Future raised more than $2.4 million during the first six months of the year, but it spent almost $3 million. "It closed down" in July, said...

Sheldon Adelson is supposedly a bad man. The gambling mogul gave $5 million to a Newt Gingrich-loving super PAC and this enabled Gingrich to maul Mitt Romney — a touch of opinion here — who had it coming anyway. Adelson is a good friend of Gingrich and a major player in Israeli politics. He owns a newspaper in Israel and supports politicians so far to the right I have to wonder if they are even Jewish. This is Sheldon Adelson, supposedly a bad man. But what about Howard Stein?

WHEN IT COMES to the corrosive influence of money in politics, the 2012 campaign has presented a trifecta of troubling developments. They are, in ascending order of worry: the complete collapse of the presidential public financing system set up in the wake of Watergate; the explosion of the super PAC political committees, which are allowed to take unlimited checks to finance independent expenditures for or against particular candidates; and the proliferation...

Federal Election Commission reports filed Thursday reveal manic activity in the final days of the 2012 campaign, with a wave of last-minute donations fueling massive spending. President Obama's campaign received contributions from 1.3 million donors in the last two weeks of the campaign and spent more than $100 million during that period. Republican Mitt Romney's campaign raised $85.9 million during the same period from nearly 600,000 donors. Together, the campaigns spent more than...

When casino magnate Sheldon Adelson switched his support from Newt Gingrich to Mitt Romney during the spring primaries, the billionaire and the candidate were eager to shed their skepticism of each other. If Adelson was going to give a political campaign more money than anyone ever had, he wanted to be certain Romney would join him in steadfast support of Israel. And Romney, according to friends of both, sought assurance that Adelson wouldn't embarrass him. Since then, Adelson has joined Romney...

My sour mood actually began a day before Monday night's Green Bay game vs. Seattle when I saw that Sheldon Adelson , the Vegas moneybags funneling large sums to PACs supporting Mitt Romney, was quoting Vince Lombardi as his philosophical inspiration. Winning isn't everything, it's the only thing, Adelson harrumphed, latching onto the famous saying that the old Packers coach neither coined nor believed. Then came the game, and that last Seahawks drive, and that final play in the end zone with time...

Sheldon Adelson: 1. Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee: 0. That's how the political scoreboard read after a highly unusual public apology that the House Democrats' campaign arm offered to the billionaire casino mogul — and Republican mega-donor — over allegations of, what else, Chinese prostitution. At issue was an Associated Press report that a former, and disgruntled, Adelson employee had alleged in court documents that his onetime boss was aware...

In April, at the White House Correspondents' Association dinner, my husband, Ben Bradlee, and I found ourselves sandwiched between the Kardashians and Newt and Callista Gingrich. Heavily made up and smiling for the cameras, the reality TV family and the political couple were swarmed over by the paparazzi, who were screaming and shouting the celebrities' names to make them look toward the cameras for that million-dollar photograph. I was shoved up against Callista's hair and nearly broke my nose.

On Tuesday, all eyes will be watching to see whether Wisconsin voters will keep labor-bashing right-winger Scott Walker (R) in the governor's mansion. But win or lose, the real story is the 15 months of people power leading up to this day. The real lesson lies in more than a year of progressive organizing, petitioning, canvassing and campaigning for the cause. The real result is a progressive movement that is deeper and broader than before. When Walker's opponents needed 540,208 signatures to trigger the recall...

Super PAC donors acting as kingmakers in presidential contest — The Washington Post Feb. 22, 2012 When communists and sympathizers made excuses for Stalin's terror, they said, "You can't make an omelet without breaking eggs. " To which George Orwell responded, "Where's the omelet?" The Post, dismayed about super PACs, reports " a rarefied group of millionaires and billionaires acting as kingmakers in the GOP contest , often helping to decide, with a simple transfer of money, which candidate...

Super PAC donors acting as kingmakers in presidential contest — The Washington Post Feb. 22, 2012 When communists and sympathizers made excuses for Stalin's terror, they said, "You can't make an omelet without breaking eggs. " To which George Orwell responded, "Where's the omelet?" The Post, dismayed about super PACs, reports " a rarefied group of millionaires and billionaires acting as kingmakers in the GOP contest , often helping to decide, with a simple transfer of money, which candidate might survive another day....

LAS VEGAS -- Warren Buffett, of course, and then Bill Gates, but can you name the third-richest American? He is Sheldon Adelson, 74, whose net worth is, according to Forbes, $26 billion. He made his first fortune by founding and then selling a computer exposition here. Today he is thriving in part thanks to Asians who gamble here and in Macao, a tiny appendage of China. His Las Vegas Sands Corporation is the largest investor in China, ever. Compact and combative as a bantam rooster, Adelson, son of a Boston cabdriver, used $128...

Harold C. Simmons, a billionaire corporate raider from Texas, pulled out his checkbook on Jan. 13 and gave $100,000 to a super PAC backing Mitt Romney, then donated $5 million more to another PAC stacked with Romney confidants. But 11 days later, Simmons doled out $500,000 to a super PAC devoted to Newt Gingrich, who had just trounced Romney in the Republican presidential primary in South Carolina. (See a full list of the biggest donors to the super PACs backing each presidential candidate.)

Family members of Las Vegas Sands casino magnate Sheldon Adelson donated $1 million last year to an independent group supporting presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich, in addition to the $10 million that Adelson and his wife, Miriam, have given the super PAC this year. Of the $2 million in donations reported through the end of 2011 by the Winning Our Future political action committee, which backs Gingrich's campaign, half came from the daughters and son-in-law of Miriam...