Paul Ramsay himself, an Australian billionaire, has a track record of making lavish donations to Australia's overtly homophobic and sexist right-wing party.
But AT&T is one of the most powerful lobbyists on Capitol Hill, and its lavish donations to special interest groups over the years have seen it garner support for the merger from some unlikely quarters.
What evidently drew Mr. Putin's wrath was that Mr. Khodorkovsky not only made lavish donations to many candidates and parties -- even the Communists and Mr. Putin's United Russia -- but he also put Yukos officials on the slates of several parties.
Ensuring that his status of proconsular imperium maius was renewed in 13 BC, Augustus stayed in Rome during the renewal process and provided veterans with lavish donations to gain their support.
Mr. Vilar, 60, made his pledge last month, the end of a year in which he lavished donations on a variety of cultural institutions, including the Los Angeles Opera and the Metropolitan Opera.
Four years ago, Wall Street lavished donations on the campaign of the Republican candidate Mitt Romney, a former private-equity executive and one of its own, contributing more than thirty-two million dollars to him, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.
They have also lavished donations and hospitality on politicians across the UK.
Mr. Engelstad's donation was to endow construction of a lavish rink for the pride of the university athletic program, its hockey team.
In 2002, Meg Whitman, currently the CEO of Hewlett Packard and then riding high as CEO of eBay, made a $30-million 30-milliono Princeton University, her alma mater, to buildonationsh new dorm, to be named Whitman College.
Charles Haughey, whom Reynolds succeeded as prime minister, had a lavish lifestyle funded not by shrewd business dealings but by sizeable donations from wealthy patrons.
