Guest Post by Pat Buchanan
Is the Republican Party’s Middle East policy up for bid?
For four days ending Sunday, a quartet of presidential hopefuls trooped to Las Vegas to attend the annual gathering of the Republican Jewish Coalition.
Impresario: Sheldon Adelson, the Vegas-Macau casino mogul whose fortune is estimated at $39 billion — 8th richest man on the planet — and who dumped $92 million into the election of 2012.
Adelson kept Newt Gingrich alive with a $15 million infusion of ad money, gutting Romney, and then sank $30 million into Mitt’s campaign.
This time Sheldon wants to buy himself a winner.
Ari Fleischer, press secretary to Bush 43, and a member of Adelson’s RJC fiefdom, put it plain and simple: “The ‘Sheldon Primary’ is an important primary. … anybody running for the Republican nomination would want to have Sheldon at his side.”
One such man is Jeb Bush, son and brother to presidents, who was the prize bull at Sheldon’s cattle show. Daniel Ruth of the Tampa Bay Times speculates on Jeb’s motive in showing up:
“Would you slink into Las Vegas to schmooze gambling mogul Sheldon Adelson who regards GOP presidential nominees as if they were trophy heads mounted in his den, if you had no interest in the White House? Bush is not going to Vegas to catch Meat Loaf’s act at Planet Hollywood.”
The 2016 presidential hopefuls “are falling at his feet,” said a veteran Republican strategist of the 80-year-old oligarch. Each of those who came — Bush, Chris Christie, and Govs. Scott Walker and John Kasich — apparently auditioned, one by one, before the godfather.
In 2016, says Adelson’s top political adviser Andy Abboud, Sheldon’s “bar for support is going to be much higher. … There’s going to be a lot more scrutiny.”
Guess that means no more Newts.
Victor Chaltiel, a major donor and Adelson friend who sits on the board of Las Vegas Sands, tells us Sheldon “doesn’t want a crazy extremist to be the nominee.” Adds Shawn Steel, a big California GOP money man, Sheldon is a “very rational guy.”
Perhaps. But last fall at Yeshiva University, this “very rational guy” gave this response to a question from Rabbi Shmuley Boteach on whether he supports U.S. negotiations on Iran’s nuclear program:
“No. What do you mean support negotiations? What are we going to negotiate about? What I would say is, ‘Listen, you see that desert out there, I want to show you something.’ …
You pick up your cell phone and you call somewhere in Nebraska and you say, ‘OK let it go.’
“So, there’s an atomic weapon, goes over ballistic missiles, the middle of the desert, that doesn’t hurt a soul. Maybe a couple of rattlesnakes, and scorpions, or whatever.
“And then you say, ‘See! The next one is in the middle of Tehran. So, we mean business. You want to be wiped out? Go ahead and take a tough position and continue with your nuclear development.
“‘You want to be peaceful. Just reverse it all, and we will guarantee that you can have a nuclear power plant for electricity purposes, energy purposes.’”
Adelson’s response was recorded by Philip Weiss of Mondoweiss website who was at Yeshiva and filmed the interview. Weiss says the audience cheered Adelson’s proposed nuclear strike on Iran and no one on the stage, not Wall Street Journal columnist Bret Stephens, peeped a word of dissent.
And this is a “very rational guy,” who doesn’t want “a crazy extremist to be the nominee”?
This is someone Republican presidential candidates must appease, if they don’t want tens of millions in attack ads run against them?
This is someone the Republican presidential hopefuls must hearken to now?
Again, so it would seem.
During his talk before the few dozen members of the RJC, Gov. Chris Christie recounted his recent trip to Israel: “I took a helicopter ride from the occupied territories” and came “to understand the military risk that Israel faces every day.”
Christie’s effort at bonding boomeranged. An angry Morton Klein of the Zionist Organization of America confronted Christie to demand that he explain just what he meant by “occupied territories.”
For half a century, the United States has considered the West Bank occupied land where Israeli settlements are illegal under the Fourth Geneva Convention.
Whatever Christie’s response, it did not satisfy the ZOA or Klein who declared: “Either [Christie] doesn’t understand the issue, or he’s hostile to Israel.”
Whereupon Christie, in a private audience with Adelson, apologized.
A source close to Adelson told Politico that Christie made clear “that he misspoke when he referred to the ‘occupied territories.’ And he conveyed that he is an unwavering friend and committed supporter of Israel, and was sorry for any confusion that came across as a result of the misstatement.”
The governor is a tough guy, but this sounds like groveling.
Is this what Republican presidential candidates must do now?
Kowtow to this fattest of fat cats who wants to buy himself an American war on Iran?
Is that what has become of the party of Reagan?
“In my country we have problem, and this problem is the Jew. Throw the Jew down the well, so my country can be free. Then we have a big party.” – Borat
“the audience cheered Adelson’s proposed nuclear strike on Iran and no one on the stage, not Wall Street Journal columnist Bret Stephens, peeped a word of dissent.”
We’re doomed. And if anyone doesn’t think Jews (banksters, billionaires, casino owners, network and movie studio owners) don’t run this country maybe need to reread this article until it sinks in. At least this guy sees Republicans, Soros and the rest fund Obama and the liberal progressives. And people cheered the idea of nuking another country. Sometimes I think we deserve to be extinct.
AWD, there is no fucking way Jeb Bush can be elected unless there is massive election fraud. Personally I enjoy watching this evil monster throwing millions upon millions of his fortune away on republican losers. Somebody should really inform him that it’s not that he’s picking the wrong guys, it’s simply that he isn’t spending enough money!
Zara
Didn’t take you long to memorize that song! lol
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Stucky, I was singing it in my car as I drove home from work yesterday 🙂
Notice Rand Paul’s name wasn’t mentioned. Apparently he doesn’t suck the jewish cock. Not too much, anyways.
ragman, Rand said he had a family obligation and could not attend. He did not say what he should have said, which is, “That evil sonofabitch Adelson can take his money and shove it up his ass!”
The ongoing dissension between the arabs and the isrealis is MIND NUMBING. Leave them alone and let them fight it out, winner take all, survival of the fittest, whatever. I know, it’s mid eastern oil, but our meddling in the affairs of that region is NOT going to end well.
Historians are going to look back at the bizarre relationship between the Americans and Israelis and wonder to themselves, “How did the world hegemon become the bitch of a little patch of sand on the other side of the planet?”
Our “representatives” have sold us out. They’ve destroyed our economy and our freedoms for a nice pay day, a book advance, and a cushy pension.
Hell isn’t nearly hot enough for housing these scumbags. I sure hope God is keeping score, because there are some treasonous bastards who need to be bitch-slapped for eternity.
Since Rand Paul won’t genuflect to Jews, we won’t support him. He has no chance to win the Republican presidential nomination in 2016. Jeb Bush, who, like Obama, will take orders, is the establishment candidate and will win the Republican nomination. You can count on it.
As for the Democrats, I’m betting on Rahm Emanuel. We control the Deep State, the government, the media, and the two major parties. The Democrats will pick whoever we decide on.
And the winner is… it’s time for a Jewish president, who with dual citizenship, can further bring the United States under Israeli and Jewish influence. Sputter and call names all you want, it’s going to happen.
The USA can’t withstand another Bush thief. They’re harder to get rid of than roaches.
Ron Paul was the last chance for America. May as well be Kramerica now.
Gee wiz, did Christie & all the other RINOs suck the dude’s dick too?
Adelson should use his own money, form his own private army, then try & invade Iran.
What a kosher chickenshit.
Your all a bit short sighted….
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has threatened the destruction of Israel many times. If IRAN and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad would just STFU maybe they wont fry in nuclear hell. I take Mahmoud Ahmadinejad at his word and I have no sympathy for him or any one that pines for the destruction of Israel. In addition I will support Israels right to exist and defend itself against all threats.
In the meantime idiots suffering from the memory loss of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad own words can go fuck themselves. 🙂
@Zara,
Were do you live? I heard the Borat song on the radio here in the DC area.
One of our Oregon senators, Gordon Smith, spoke out strongly against the Iraq war years ago, saying something like “walk, run, anything, just get out of Iraq ASAP.” I thought, correctly, at the time that going against the machine like that was going to be the end of his career.
1.Falsehoods lulls a lot of you guys into believing the Jews are at fault when the fault actually is the Iranian leadership. Z is a non stop propaganda machine and after a while of constantly repeating that its the “jews” fault many people acutally start to believe the lies.
2. Israel is the little satan and the USA is the big satan. American culture and the Western way of life is despised by Islam. If Israel falls your next. You are in the mooslim cross hairs and should never ever forget it. The only thing standing between you and the mooslims is Israel!
3. If reality is to much to take I suggest Jack Daniels black label and quit blaming the Jews for naturally protecting themselves.
4. All the neo-con bullshit that is so hated would disappear if the mooslims would live and let live. Maybe its best to prepare for war but dont forget who instigated the whole mess….Islam and the mooslims.
Have a nice day! 🙂
Isn’t it beautiful when physical ugliness harmonizes with evil and the ugliness of soul:
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Why the GOP will lose ’16 (hint: it’s spelled S-H-E-L-D-O-N)
Kelley Beaucar Vlahos, April 02, 2014
That’s really the only word that comes to mind after reading Dana Milbank’s account today of the recent GOP pilgrimage to Sin City to kiss the ring of Sheldon Adelson, the 9th richest man in the world, and quite possibly the most ideologically driven of them all. That’s not to say he can pick winners. Remember, Sheldon bombed as kingmaker in the 2014 elections (in fact, most people believe he actually blew the Republicans’ chances in the race entirely). He chose to plow $16 million of his personal coin into Republican has-been Newt Gingrich, who, let’s be serious, only runs for president these days to bolster his own marketing and fundraising schemes. The only effect was to injure Mitt Romney in the primary. Romney never fully recovered, and lost terribly to President Obama in November, despite of an infusion of Adelson cash later on. As they say, ‘heck of a job.
But that hasn’t stopped the first crop of 2016 nominee wannabes from jumping to Adelson’s whistle: Republican Party players John Kasich, Jeb Bush, Chris Christie and Scott Walker spent the weekend kowtowing like sops in a display Hollywood couldn’t have sketched out better. Mindful of their party’s family values, no doubt, they guilelessly delivered themselves up to the mogul of the Las Vegas Sands Corporation empire, square in the epicenter of blackjack and booze, prostitutes and pleasure. Milbank :
Adelson was hosting the Republican Jewish Coalition at his Venetian hotel and gambling complex, and the would-be candidates paraded themselves before the group, hoping to catch the 80-year-old casino mogul’s eye. Everybody knows that, behind closed doors, politicians often sell themselves to the highest bidder; this time, they were doing it in public, as if vending their wares at a live auction.
Adelson has bestowed great generosity on Republicans — $150 million in post-Citizens United cash to their candidates and causes during the last presidential election cycle — but clearly only those that adhere to his own fervently hawkish views on the Middle East. Adelson is unabashed defender of Israel who, according to The New York Times, “opposes any territorial compromise to make way for a Palestinian state.” He is openly Islamophobic, saying at one point that “not all Islamists are terrorists, but all the terrorists are Islamists,” and defending Gingrich with vigor when the former Speaker of the House famously declared Palestinians “an invented people.”
Adelson has been known to underwrite congressional boondoggles to Israel, helping to shape their views on foreign policy. His attempt at influencing outcomes doesn’t end at the border. In 2007, according to The New York Times, Adelson started a free daily newspaper widely viewed as supportive of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, “a close friend who shares his hawkish outlook.” The NYT also noted that at one point, Adelson was rumored to be calling for the ouster of Condoleezza Rice from the Bush Administration because she – and former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert — were “betraying Israel.”
Anything close to an Adelson foreign policy in the White House would be a nightmare, and most likely everyone knows it but that hasn’t kept power-desperate Republicans from taking his money. Aside from the millions he wasted on Gingrich, he’s sprinkled millions on other hawks, like John McCain, Rudy Giuliani, George W. Bush, and Eric Cantor, too.
And he’s known as a street fighter — aside from making his fortune in one of the most predatory and exploitive industries there is, in 2013 Adelson admitted he “might” have violated federal bribery laws during an ongoing investigation of his dealings with the Chinese. Adelson owns five of Macau’s 35 casinos (including the biggest, the Venetian Macau) and reportedly wants a much bigger imprint on the Chinese mainland. Investigators want to know more amid a number lawsuits alleging that Adelson bribed officials to exploit Macau, and to pursue his commercial interests in Beijing. According to Wikipedia, Adelson’s Las Vegas Sands brought in $4.2 billion in Macau-generated revenue in 2011 alone.
Many have sued Adelson, but not all win. According to The New York Times, his own sons sued him, alleged he cheated them, but they lost. Meanwhile Adelson is always suing others, and sometimes he wins. He filed a libel suit against a Las Vegas newspaper columnist, John L. Smith, who eventually had to declare bankruptcy. He won a libel suit against the Daily Mail of London in 2008. The newspaper had accused him of pursuing “despicable business practices” and having “habitually and corruptly bought political favour.” Adelson said it was “a grave slur” on his “personal integrity and business reputation”, and he won a judgment of approximately £4 million as a result.
He filed a similar suit against a Wall Street Journal writer in 2012 who called him “a scrappy, foul-mouthed billionaire from working-class Dorchester, Mass.”
Adelson may have a team of lawyers to defend his name in the courtroom, and he may be able to call in the chits when he wants to massage or push legislation his way on the Hill, but delivering the next president is a fantasy he will likely never see realized. His zealousness appears to cloud his vision when it comes to picking favorites, and his favorites risk looking tawdry and bought when they take his money. And my, they look really foolish when they beg for it. According to Milbank:
Walker, the Wisconsin governor, pandered unabashedly by giving the Hebrew meaning of his son Matthew’s name and by mentioning that he displays a menorah at home along with the Christmas tree. And Christie, the New Jersey governor, gushed about his trip to Israel and the “occupied territories.”
That was a gaffe. Pro-Israel hawks consider the term pejorative and, at any rate, the more relevant occupied territory at the moment is the Republican Party — wholly occupied by billionaires.
But will they occupy the White House? If this kind of behavior is any indication, the answer is no.
IraK picks a houseboy and the first Jewish president, says:
“Jeb Bush, who, like Obama, will take orders, is the establishment candidate and will win the Republican nomination. You can count on it.”
There’s ‘P’ Bush waiting in the wings. What difference does it make who is in the Negro-built White House? Americanos take their tribute to Shelly’s Kasbah to buy whatever vote he wants to buy.
Party on, Shel,