The NEA, that keeps a $58 million payroll for about 600 employees, dished over $65 million to Jesse Jackson’s PUSH Coalition, the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, Amnesty International, AIDS Walk Washington and other lefty advocacy groups in 2004, according to the Wall Street Journal. NEA gave hefty funds to a gay lobbying group (Human Rights Campaign, $15,000), anti-personal savings efforts (Fund to Protect Social Security, $400,000), a liberal litigation organization opposing Sam Alito’s Supreme Court nomination (Women’s Law Center, $5,000) and to a think tank that published reports concluding education is underfunded and teachers are underpaid (Economic Policy Institute, $45,000)