Billionaires demand control of America

Think America is a democratic nation? Not if the billionaires behind Freedom's Watch have their way. Freedom's watch is an unregulated organization designed to collect unlimited funds and use them to attack Democratic candidates for Congress, particularly in rural districts where even small amounts of money can go a long way. The Sunday Washington Post has a good article on Freedom's watch.

Paul Kiel at TPMMuckraker describes their operation.

To review the White House connections: the group is headed by Bradley Blakeman, a former Bush White House official, Mel Sembler, a millionaire former Bush admbassador to Italy, and Ari Fleischer, who serves as the group's spokesman. Much of its support so far has come from Sembler and casino magnate and billionaire Sheldon Adelson, the sixth richest person in the world. (The group intends to "broaden its base" as time goes on, Fleischer says.) The group got off the ground with a $15 million effort to support the president's surge strategy in August, but it's sticking around for the long haul.

So here's who we have so far:

• Ari Fleischer - FW Board Member - previously White House spokesman.


• Brad Blakeman - President and Chief Executive of Freedom's Watch (FW) and previously White House scheduler.


• Sheldon Adelson - FW Donor - Owner of the Las Vegas Sands company and listed by Forbes as the world's sixth richest man.


• Mel Sembler, - FW Board Member - a Florida Republican who was Bush’s ambassador to Italy


• William P. Weidner, - FW Board Member - president and chief operating officer of the Las Vegas Sands Corp.


• Matt Brooks, - FW Board Member - executive director of the Republican Jewish Coalition.


• Anthony Gioia, - FW Donor - a Buffalo businessman who was Bush’s ambassador to Malta


• Kevin Moley, FW dononr - was Bush’s ambassador to the U.S. Mission to the United Nations in Geneva;


• Howard Leach, - FW Donor - a former Republican National Committee finance chairman who was Bush’s ambassador to France


• Dr. John Templeton of Pennsylvania, FW Donor - chairman and president of the John Templeton Foundation


• Ed Snider, FW Donor - chairman of Comcast Spectacor, the huge Philadelphia sports and entertainment firm;


• Richard Fox, FW Donor - chairman of the Jewish Policy Center and was Pennsylvania State Chairman of the Reagan/Bush campaign in 1980.

[Note: the above names come from Mike Allen's Aug 22, 2007 article at The Politico.]

Freedom's Watch is expected to resemble a much larger and much more deeply financed version of Texas millionaire Bob Perry's "Swift Boat Veterans," the organization that conducted the nasty, lying anti-Kerry campaign in the 2004 election. Their operations will begin during the general election and their targets will be Democratic candidates for office.

The 2008 general election is going to be the nastiest election campaign that living Americans have seen. Count on it. And the source of the nastiness is the Republican Party funded by anti-social self-centered billionaires.