By now, most are familiar with Romney's #1 contributor, gambling magnate Sheldon Adelson, but take a look at #2 on the list, Harold Simmons.
Note that Simmons has contributed more than all of Obama's Top 5 combined.
Simmons has been sued repeatedly by the Justice Department for failing to clean up contaminated Superfund sites.
Simmons called Obama "the most dangerous American alive, because he would eliminate free enterprise in this country."
According to D Magazine, Simmonds owned munitions plants that repeatedly released uranium into the atmosphere, groundwater, and area wells. At one plant in Ohio, "officials estimate that radioactive contamination of the groundwater may persist for 100 years."
In his home town...
Cadillac Heights is a small enclave south of downtown Dallas, situated close to the Trinity River.
For years, two lead smelters operated in Cadillac Heights, poisoning the people who lived there. One, Dixie Metals, remained in operation until 1990. It’s now a mounded landfill with a chain-link perimeter fence in the middle of a residential area. The other smelter closed in 1978, but remnants of it remain standing. It belonged to a company now controlled by Harold Simmons, NL Industries.
Peter Johnson, longtime community activist, remembers Cadillac Heights’ recent past: “It was a community that was poisoned; the earth had been polluted. And it stunk. Most of those people were sick with cancer and kidney problems. The children had birth defects. They were poor people. The city didn’t pay attention to their problems. Lead was a part of that community for a long time.”
Illustration by Mark Fredrickson
What He Wants: The death of the EPA
According to
Tim Dickinson at Rolling Stone, Simmons plans to store radioactive waste from 36 states in an underground dump in Texas.
So, what does this billionaire do with his dirty money?
Here's a list of his cited contributions (wiki)
1980s
Simmons contributed to the defense funds of Oliver North and John Poindexter, Reagan aides implicated in the Iran-Contra scandal.
1990s
In 1993, Simmons was fined $19,000 by the Federal Election Commission for exceeding the legal limit of campaign contributions in 1989 and 1990 elections.[19]
Between 1993 and 1997, Simmons and family members and Contran gave more than $315,000 to Republican candidates, according to FEC records.[19]
2004 presidential election
During the 2004 presidential campaign Simmons made a $4 million donation to the group Swift Vets and POWs for Truth.[20] He also donated $100,000 to George W. Bush's January 2005 inaugural ball.[21]
2008 presidential election
2010 midterm elections
Two of Harold Simmons’ companies – Southwest Louisiana Land which he owns and Dixie Rice Agricultural Corp in which he is a major investor – were each $1 million donors to the American Crossroads, a 527 organization working to elect primarily Republican legislators during the 2010 midterm elections.[25]
2012 presidential election
Simmons's company, Contran Corporation, donated $1 million to Make Us Great Again, a super PAC supporting Rick Perry's 2012 presidential candidacy. That donation was the single largest received by the PAC in the fourth quarter of 2011.[26] According to a CBS article, Contran also was the largest donor to American Crossroads, giving $2 million to the conservative super PAC co-founded by Karl Rove. [27] Later data from Opensecrets.org shows Contran contributions of $5 million in Nov 2011, $5 million in Jan 2012, and $1 million in April 2012 to American Crossroads. [28] Simmons also donated $100,000 directly to another Perry super PAC, the Restoring Prosperity Fund,[29] before donating $5 million to American Crossroads in addition to Contran's donation.[30] He has also contributed to Restore our Future, a super PAC supporting Mitt Romney.[31]
As of March, Simmons and Contran Corp. had given almost $18 million to conservative super PACs,[32] the election's largest single contributor, spread among all the major Republican candidates following the advice of Rove. Simmons said, "Any of these Republicans would make a better president than that socialist, Obama. Obama is the most dangerous American alive ... because he would eliminate free enterprise in this country."[33]
So, will $16,000,000 buy the end of the EPA and the power to pollute our air and water with radioactive waste?
We can't afford to find out. Support President Obama and your Democratic representatives.