Meet the Shady Dallas Mega-Billionaire Industrialist Pouring Money into Rick Perry's Coffers

[Swede]

snip

Most Americans have never heard of Harold Simmons, despite his fantastic wealth, because he wisely keeps his head low.
The outstanding example is Harold Simmons, a Dallas mega-billionaire industrialist who has donated well over a million dollars to Perry’s campaign committees recently. With Perry’s eager assistance—and despite warnings from Texas environmental officials—Simmons has gotten approval to build an enormous radioactive waste dump on top of a crucial underground water supply.

“We first had to change the law to where a private company can own a license, and we did that,” Simmons boasted in 2006, after the Texas Legislature and the governor rubber-stamped initial legislation and approvals for the project. “Then we got another law passed that said (the state) can only issue one license. Of course, we were the only ones that applied.”

http://www.alternet.org/story/152216/meet_the_shady_dallas_mega-billionaire_industrialist_pouring_money_into_rick_perry%27s_coffers/

[SammyWinstonJack]

1. ...

:argh:

[banned from Kos]

2. Also the Wyly brothers, Texas GOP billionaires who the SEC charged with fraud

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wyly_brothers

in 2010.

Way to go, Obama SEC!

[provis99]

3. Eisenhower's opinion on Texas rich men:

Should any political party attempt to abolish social security, unemployment insurance, and eliminate labor laws and farm programs, you would not hear of that party again in our political history. There is a tiny splinter group, of course, that believes you can do these things. Among them are few other Texas oil millionaires, and an occasional politician or business man from other areas. Their number is negligible and they are stupid."

[Octafish]

4. Bass Brothers invested in another Texas flyweight...

...who used his bad name to gain high office.