Barrel Strength

The demise of the Madoff Ponzi scheme will have wide repercussion because of the sheer size of the fund.  But there is a silver lining.  The Daily Kos, a well known leftist website, has declared Madoff as “Progressive Enemy #1“.   Anything that is sufficient to enrage the Kossacks must be good news indeed.

It turns out, that the JEHT Foundation was an investor in the Madoff fund, and the losses are such that it will be closing for good at the end of January.  NYT describes it in the first paragraph of their report as “a charity that supports reform of the criminal and juvenile justice systems” and conveniently ignores that the first page of the foundation web site lists four prominent charitable areas: criminal justice, juvenile justice, international justice and, fair and participatory elections .   All from a leftist perspective of course.  The foundation states that “The International Justice Program seeks to promote U.S. adherence to the international rule of law and the engagement of key stakeholders in and outside of government to this end.”  The previous grant recipients include: Amnesty International, the ACLU, Advocates for Environmental Human Rights, American Society of International Law, Center for International Environmental Law, Center for Constitutional Rights, Coalition for International Justice, Human Rights Watch, Physicians for Human Rights, Immigrant Legal Resource Center, Center for Public Integrity, Center for Investigative Reporting etc.  JEHT as a source of funds will be coming to an abrupt and permanent halt in January. A gift that keeps on giving indeed.

Looking back, perhaps the maverick McCain was right when he said during the campaign that he wanted to fire the SEC chairman. The statement was widely met with derision by the MSM.  As we have learned, everything is stupid till Obama says it.  Recall the article in TPM which said that Krauthammer was insane because he proposed extending the US nuclear umbrella to Israel.  Now that Obama has proposed the same it is just brilliant.

Given that Markopolos provided SEC with a detailed description of the fraud starting in May 1999, was the real story that the SEC turned a blind eye because they were “told” to by folks who had an interest in seeing certain of Madoff’s clients lose their ability to fund various projects?

Pardon me, Arran Gold, if I rip off your latest email posting to the Barrelstrengthian email list. This is too delicious!
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Arran Gold writes:
Madoff news just keeps getting better! All sorts of leftist charity organisations lost money in that debacle.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/12/16/43232/543/693/673580

But, the real story, at least as far as the Progressive blogosphere’s concerned, is that Madoff’s crimes have resulted in the virtual evisceration of hundreds of the very best, privately-funded social programs in the U.S. and throughout the world.

Madoff, single-handedly, has done more harm to the Progressive cause than almost anyone yet realizes. And, that’s because The JEHT Foundation, one of the leading providers of grants for all things Progressive, has just abruptly announced they’re shutting their doors at the end of January as a result of having come to the realization that they’ve lost virtually all their money because it was all under Madoff’s management.