Sheldon Adelson is not a household name, but he is one of the richest men in the world. His fortune is estimated at over $26 billion, making him the third richest in the US. Adelson made his fortune when he bought a struggling Las Vegas Hotel - The Sands Hotel - and turned it into one of the stripe’s hottest assets. The Las Vegas Sands Corporation owns the famous Venetian hotel.

Besides gambling, Adelson takes a keen interest in politics. He started and almost exclusively funds the soon-to-be defunct right-wing advocacy group Freedom’s Watch. The group started in early 2007 to support George Bush’s Iraq surge policy and has maintained a hawkish right-wing foreign policy path along with supporting conservative domestic policies.

But Adelson has hit some hard times. He spent billions starting casinos in China and Singapore only to have them open when the world economy went sour and there was that much money to spend for gambling. One estimate puts his loss thus far at $13 billion! So Adelson is scaling back. The first to go is Freedom’s Watch.

The organization will shut down. It had already been facing a tough relationship with Adelson due to the fact that because he was the most important donor with his money providing almost the entire budget, he had enormous say and did not allow Freedom’s Watch to properly function as an independent organization.

Second, Adelson will significantly cut back his contributions to his other mission: Birth Right Israel - a group that send young Jews on an all-expenses paid trip to Israel. In 2007 and 2008, Adelson gave the organization $70 million, but will contribute $20 for 2009 and $10 million for 2010.

Freedom’s Watch is gone and Adelson is down $13 billion, o’ have the rich have fallen.

I must say that I am happy to see Freedom’s Watch go, it represents the unsavory aspect of American conservatism - hawkish, extreme, dogmatic. Further, Adelson’s lose is nothing that will make me sad. He is a fanatical Zionist, friend of former Israeli right-wing PM Bibi Netanyau, who also fiercely opposes a two-state solution. He cut all contributions to the main pro-Israel lobby in American - AIPAC - because it endorsed a two-sate solution. So, I say, to hell with him!