By Matthew Vadum on 1.5.09 @ 6:09AM
When he wasn't defrauding charities and investors, Bernard Madoff
was bankrolling liberal causes and candidates.
By swindling clients out of up to $50 billion, hedge fund manager
Bernard L. Madoff has hurt -- and in some cases fatally
wounded -- scores of nonprofit groups and charitable foundations.
Through his Social Security-like Ponzi scheme that paid older
investors with incoming funds from newer investors, Madoff, a
heavy donor to Democratic candidates, also did irreparable harm
to the liberal and far-left causes he loves.
At least two major left-leaning charities are closing their doors
as a direct consequence of the record-breaking fraud.
The giant Picower Foundation had the misfortune to choose Madoff
to manage its more than $1 billion in assets.
The charity has given away more than $189 million since 1999.
A sizeable chunk of its funding has gone to abortion groups,
including NARAL ($3.2 million), Center for Reproductive Rights
($2.5 million), Planned Parenthood ($2.4 million), and Center for
Reproductive Law and Policy ($625,000).
Picower Foundation gave $2.9 million to the Southern Poverty Law
Center, a public interest law firm that uses politically skewed
definitions of racism to indoctrinate children while smearing
conservatives who question racial preference programs. The
foundation also gave $200,000 to Project Vote (a.k.a. Voting for
America), an affiliate of the radical Association of Community
Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN).
Another affected charity is the JEHT Foundation, which said it
expects to close down in January because its benefactors invested
in Madoff’s hedge fund. JEHT, an acronym that stands for Justice,
Equality, Human dignity and Tolerance, is a reliable funder of
far left causes and has given away more than $72 million in
grants since heiress and Democratic donor Jeanne Levy-Church
founded it in 2000.
JEHT gave $1.7 million to the ACLU and its foundation, along with
$839,500 to the ultra-leftist public interest law firm, the
Center for Constitutional Rights. CCR helped to convince the
Supreme Court in Boumediene v. Bush (2008) to confer
habeas corpus rights for the first time in history on alien
enemies detained abroad by the U.S. military in wartime. The
decision gives terrorists a green light to manipulate our justice
system and flout the well-established laws of civilized warfare.
JEHT gave $250,000 to the American Institute for Social Justice,
an ACORN affiliate. The Saul Alinsky-inspired Institute trains
community organizers and in recent years has served as a shadowy
financial clearinghouse, directing $9 million to ACORN and two of
its other affiliates.
JEHT gave $55,000 to Nan Aron’s Alliance for Justice, a group
that systematically distorts conservative judges' records in an
effort to block their elevation to higher courts. You may
remember the Alliance helped to torpedo the Supreme Court
nomination of Robert Bork in 1987 and nearly succeeded in
"borking" Clarence Thomas in 1991. More recently, the group
fought President Bush's nominations of Charles Pickering and
Priscilla Owen to federal courts.
JEHT also gave more than $4.2 million to the Tides Foundation and
its affiliates. Tides funds abortion rights advocacy,
environmental extremism, anti-war activism, gun control, and
opposes free trade.
The Madoff scandal has also ended Madoff’s personal philanthropic
efforts.
Madoff Family Foundation, which reported assets of $19.1 million
at the end of 2007, has given $110,000 to the anti-poverty Robin
Hood Foundation since 2003.
Newsman Tom Brokaw and Children's Defense Fund president and
Hillary Clinton pal Marian Wright Edelman sit on the Robin Hood
board. The liberal foundation has given ACORN $821,000. George
Soros's Soros Fund Charitable Foundation gave the Robin Hood
Foundation a $9.8 million community development grant in 2000.
Other reported victims of Madoff include Yeshiva University ($110
million), Hadassah, the Women’s Zionist Organization of America
($90 million), Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity ($15 million),
and movie director Steven Spielberg’s Wunderkinder Foundation (an
undisclosed amount).
Of course the left won’t be crippled by the loss of funding
caused by Madoff’s hedge fund fraud.
Hedge fund manager George Soros is standing by.
topics:
Bernie Madoff
