Surprise, Surprise, Sheldon Adelson's lawyers just admitted what we have known all along. His company used illegal bribes to get its Macau casino built.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/03/business/in-filing-casino-operator-admits-likely-violation-of-an-antibribery-law.html?hp
The Las Vegas Sands Corporation, an international gambling empire controlled by the billionaire Sheldon G. Adelson, has informed the Securities and Exchange Commission that it likely violated a federal law against bribing foreign officials.
In its annual regulatory report published by the commission on Friday, the Sands reported that its audit committee and independent accountants had determined that “there were likely violations of the books and records and internal controls provisions” of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.
Last year, Adelson spent a measly $60 million of his $25 billion fortune attempting to unseat Obama and install a Republican---any Republican in the White House. In retrospect, it probably seemed like a good deal to him and his accountants. Remember what happen to Siemens? They settled their foreign bribery case for
$1.34 billion. A gambling man, Adelson must have reasoned that $60 million spent to save $1 billion was a good bet. And though he lost the crap shoot, chances are if he had it to do over again---the bribes, the campaign donations--- he would. Because the Supreme Court has made it very profitable to ignore federal law.
Imagine what would have happened to Enron if Citizens United was already the law of the land in 2000. Ken Lay, Karl Rove and Antonin Scalia managed to get Bush selected. Their party controlled the House. However, the GOP had only a razor thin margin of the control in the Senate, and they lost that when one Republican turned Independent. Because the Senate was in Democratic hands, the bill which the House wrote and the White House endorsed to give Enron a huge infusion of taxpayer money in the wake of 9-11 was not passed. Enron's house of cards collapsed, much like the war that was lost for the want of a horseshoe nail in the nursery rhyme. Had Ken Lay been free to spend sixty million dollars shoring up the Senate in 2000, he would still be the head of the world's "biggest" company---
That is what Citizen United is all about. Giving corporate criminals like Ken Lay the ability to buy elections so that their crimes go unpunished and their debts get paid by you and me. The Supreme Court ruled the way they did in Citizens United because five of the Justices never, ever want to see any of their rich business buddies dragged through the mud again. Jail is for poor folks and minorities. The rich are different. If they sin, they buy a papal pardon. If they break the law, they buy a politician and get a bailout. It is the Neo Conservative American Way.
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How Citizens United Encourages Corporations to Break the Law Like Enron (Original post)
