Posted on 04/12/2023 8:52:33 AM PDT by Twotone
Conservative New York Times columnist Ross Douthat on Tuesday slammed Republican megadonor Ken Griffin’s “indefensibly stupid” $300,000,000 gift to Harvard’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences.
“The fact that Griffin is presumably ‘fiscally conservative but socially liberal’ provides some vague way of reconciling this with his support for Ron DeSantis, but really if you’re any kind of Republican in 2023 this sort of giving is indefensibly stupid,” Douthat tweeted.
Griffin, a hedge fund manager worth $35 billion, donated over $70 million to Republicans in the 2022 midterm cycle, making him the party’s second-largest donor of the cycle, according to watchdog group OpenSecrets. After Republicans’ underwhelming performance in the Nov. 2022 midterms, he urged the party to move on from former President Donald Trump.
Harvard announced Griffin’s $300 million donation on Tuesday, and the unrestricted nature of the gift means Harvard can use the funds at its own discretion, the Harvard Crimson reported. Griffin has given nearly $2 billion to philanthropic causes. The school also said it would name its Graduate School of Arts and Sciences after Griffin. Harvard named its undergraduate financial aid office after Griffin when he donated $150 million to financial aid in 2014.
Griffin graduated from Harvard in 1989 and began investing during his time at the school. In 1990, he founded Citadel, a Miami-based hedge fund with an estimated $57 billion in assets under management, per Forbes.
Camouflage phrase. Whenever I hear that, I figure the person is a full-blown communist -- socially liberal/destructive who doesn't give a hoot about anything fiscally conservative.
You cannot be both. Socially liberal policies lead to more government spending, there is no avoiding that.
Its his money, after all
BUT it is STUPID
He’s promoting woke, centralized, statist, elitism in America. But that is what made him rich, after all.
Want to do some good for America? Give 600 private high schools $500K each to fund STEM, computer science, traditional philosphy, christian ethics, etc...
It would make a huge difference in the lives of HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS of young teens.
Proof that even imbeciles can be billionaires.
Reported on Ingraham’s show last night.
Gotta give credit to the Rats for their focused investments despite the concentration on the destruction of the Country.
On the other hand, the Stupid Party is simply stupid.
Agreed, yet every Losertarian I’ve ever met denies it.
Griffin’s donations have been perplexing. He talks as if he had been a supporter of Trump. Most of his political money has been backing Richard Irving, the black Republican mayor of Aurora, IL, to run for governor of Illinois. He got spanked in the primary, despite an enormous amount of funding from Griffin (tens of millions of dollars). He previously also gave megabucks to other failed Illinois Republican gubernatorial candidates. He’s also given significantly to the Senate Majority Fund and to DeSantis’ 2018 run.
I would add to your list that Griffin says that he would back DeSantis for 2024.
how about sex changes for the entire harvard staff?
mandatory
This is the guy who founded Citadel.
With each new headline, Griffin is inexorably moving up the WOKE list. DeSantis accepting 5 million bucks from him says a lot about DeSantis.
Benedict Arnold comes to mind...
That’s in the teaser.
Harvard is his alma mater. They allowed him to install a satellite dish and run a business while at the school.
Maybe he’s just saying “Thanks”?
From Wiki:
“Griffin started at Harvard College in the fall of 1986.[9] That year, one of his first investments was to buy put options on Home Shopping Network, making a $5,000 profit.[11] He also invested in convertible arbitrage opportunities in convertible bonds.[9] Despite a ban on running businesses from campus, Griffin convinced school administrators to allow him to install a satellite dish on the roof of Cabot House, a dormitory, to receive stock quotes.[11][9] He also asked Terrence J. O’Connor, the manager of convertible bonds at Merrill Lynch in Boston, to open a brokerage account for him with $100,000 that Griffin had gotten from his grandmother, his dentist, and others.[7][9] His first fund launched in 1987 with $265,000, days after his 19th birthday.[9] The fund launched in time to profit from short positions on Black Monday (1987).[9] Griffin graduated in 1989 with a degree in economics.[12]
Unless there is no government to tax and spend anything...
[Proof that even imbeciles can be billionaires.]
Yep.
Maybe I should start The Human Fund. Money for People.
I am a PhD graduate of Harvard GSAS.
I STRENUOUSLY object to GSAS being renamed the “Kenneth C. Griffin Graduate School of Arts and Sciences”!
Harvard has NO RIGHT to dishonor long-time alumni of GSAS by selling “naming rights” to our school to a rich donor!!!!
I don’t care about the politics of the donor—Republican, Democrat, or Mugwump. GSAS should NEVER bear his or her name!!!!
GSAS already had a name—Harvard! That is enough!!!!
$2 billion for philanthropic causes.
I keep asking, where is the conservative George Soros. Why don’t we have someone buying up conservative DAs and voter Registrars all over blue states and blue cities, to push a conservative agenda.
Why does the left pay for power, while the right wastes all of their money as the Left keeps getting stronger.
Somewhere in my question is the answer. It is still frustrating.
For $2 billion he could have created a conservative Twitter, a conservative newspaper, a conservative TV network, funded conservative schools.
How many conservative seats could you win on local school boards with $2 billion?
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