"Outraged" victims tied to John Kerry campaign DIRECTLY.

so reads the headline. It makes one think that Bush has enraged every member of every family who lost someone on September 11. It gives the idea that Bush has crossed the line and disrespected the victims of our nation's tragedy....

The article has quotes from some women like Rita Lasar, who lost her brother. Rita says, "Ground Zero is a sacred site ... find some other way to run a campaign without stepping on the bodies of our dead." In passing it mentions that Rita is a steering committee member of the group, September 11 Families for Peaceful Tomorrows.

Then another article quotes Colleen Kelly as saying, "It's absolutely inappropriate ... There are certain memories and certain images that I consider sacred." Colleen Kelly leads the group, September 11 Families for Peaceful Tomorrows.

Now just reading these articles leaves the average person with the feeling that these women would have no political agenda, they're simply mourning victims of a national tragedy who are voicing their heartfelt, personal feelings in reaction to a few ads supporting President Bush in the Presidential campaign. But let's take a closer look....

Peaceful Tomorrows Organized primarily by families of victims, Peaceful Tomorrows seeks to open up a public dialogue about appropriate alternative responses to the September 11 tragedies. Efforts will be made to raise awareness of the complex issues involved in responding to terrorism and influence the US policy towards more effective, democratically-based responses to terrorism in both domestic and foreign policy.

That is the description of the group as presented on a list of projects sponsored by the Tides Center of Pennsylvannia. http://www.tidescenter.org/project_detail.cfm?id=60053.0

But who is the Tides Center? Known as the Tides Center for Pennsylvania, formerly the Tides Center for Western Pennsylvania, it is none other than a creation of the Tides Foundation and Center, headquartered in San Francisco, and two Pennsylvania-based foundations -- the Vira Heinz Endowment and the Howard Heinz Endowment-- chaired by Teresa Heinz Kerry, heir to the Heinz food company fortune and wife of Democrat presidential contender Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts.

That's right.... these poor outraged victims are simply pawns in the political workings of the Democrat Party.

Tides works like this: When a high-profile donor wants to give money to a group with an extreme agenda but doesn't want its fingerprints on the donation, it simply gives the money to The Tides Foundation in the form of a "donor- advised donation." Tides then passes that money on to the desired recipient, masking the real source of the cash. As anti-war activist Drummond Pike (who set up the Tides Foundation in 1976 for the express purpose of keeping donors' identities unknown) told the Chronicle of Philanthropy, a publication for the nonprofit world, "Anonymity is very important to most of the people we work with."

And, the amount of "hidden money" handled by the Tides Foundation is considerable. Since its founding, the relatively little-known foundation has made over $300 million in grants. In 2002 it amassed assets of $139 million and had an income of $59.3 million. Between 1995 and 2001, $4.3 million of that money came from the Howard Heinz Endowment. In 2002, it and the Vira Heinz Endowment blessed The Tides Center, a San Francisco spin-off of the Tides Foundation, with another $190,000 while the two endowments gave $1.6 million to the new Tides Center for Western Pennsylvania.

If all this movement of money between the Tides Foundation, Tides Center, two Heinz Endowments and Pittsburgh's new Tides Center for Western Pennsylvania has you shaking your head, let's talk about your money. You, the taxpayer.

Nearly $8 million in taxpayer money flowed into the Tides Center in the form of federal grants made by eight different agencies between 1997 and 2001. They include the Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the Department of Agriculture and the Department of Energy. Does this mean your tax dollars also are going to fund the Tides Center for Western Pennsylvania, a creation of the Howard Heinz Endowment, which in 2001 was worth a breathtaking $788.6 million in 2001? With the Tides Center for a partner, we will likely never know.

What we do know is that, with Tides as a partner, the Heinz Endowments now keep interesting company.

The Tides Center also manages the Youth Gender Project whose goal is to "empower and support transgender, gender-variant, intersexed and gender-questioning youth and young adults." I freely admit, not all of these terms are in my spell-checker.

Grant recipients also include the Iraq Peace Fund that has so far granted $489,000 to 27 groups to promote anti-war marches and their coverage by the news media, as well as the mission of one of those groups, MoveOn.org, whose purpose is to defeat George W. Bush.

While groups such as these and dozens of others organized and/or financed by the Tides Foundation and Center are relatively recent in their origin and transient in their nature, many are more established and pervasive in their influence.

The Ruckus Society, which received over $200,000 in Tides money between 1999 and 2002, was begun in 1995 to train activists in violent protest against biotechnology, globalization and the World Bank. It incited property destruction in the Seattle riots of 1999 and Washington, D.C., the following year. However, Ruckus director John Sellers didn't see the wanton destruction of property as being violent at all. He told Mother Jones magazine, " I make a distinction between violence and destruction of property. Violence to me is against living things. But inanimate objects? I think you can be destructive, you can use vandalism strategically. It may be violence under the law but I just don't think it's violence."

The Natural Resources Defense Council, another Tides project, destroyed many apple farmers in Washington state with its phony Alar pesticide scare. It "leaked" a false report that Alar, used by the state's apple growers there, caused cancer, particularly in children. Even movie stars signed onto the hoax, testifying before Congress about Alar's dangers. Sales of apples plummeted before the hoax could be debunked.

Finally, the American Medical Association concluded, "The Alar scare of three years ago shows what can happen when science is taken out of context or the risks of a product are blown out of proportion." Unfortunately, that conclusion came too late to save the livelihoods of many growers.

Unfortunately, too, it came too late to prevent NRDC from cashing in to the tune of $700,000 from a book on the bogus scare.

But that seems to be what Tides and its dozens of its related organizations are about: money, a flagrant disregard for the truth, and even disdain for the law.

So, in the end, we don't really have heartfelt outrage by a few victims' family members, we have a concerted, coordinated political campaign, cloaked in a shroud of mourning, waging war against George W. Bush in his bid for reelection. I think we all should be completely outraged as the Democrat's use of this tactic as one of the lowest, most vile examples of disgraceful political gamesmanship in modern history.

Now all the pieces are coming together. You see, as these "outraged" family members were touring the airwaves, there was a peculiar familiary to their comments. Despite being on numerous different media outlets in different cities at different time, most of them repeated the same four or fives lines - VERBATIM. The Democrat talking points certainly found their way to the fax machines last night, didn't they?

Additionally, in Bal Harbour, Fla., the International Association of Fire Fighters Union, which endorsed Kerry early in the presidential race, approved a resolution asking the Bush campaign to pull the ads and urging him to apologize to the families. The union formally endorsed John Kerry in the Fall of 2002. Many rank and file firefighters, when asked, said they did not share their union leader's sentiments. It's a shame Katie Couric failed to ask for their opinions on national television.

Isn't it telling the tactics the Democrats have to use to challenge Bush? Doesn't it say much about their message, their party and their candidate? They can't deliver an honest statement or valid solution to the American public. They are wrapped in their little world millions of miles out of touch with the average, mainstream American that they must stoop to illegal, unethical and immoral actions to get a point across.

But you see, not all victims' relatives were angered by the television campaign. "It speaks to the truth of the times," said Jennie Farrell, who lost her brother in the attacks. "September 11 was something beyond the realm of imagination, and George Bush . . . led us through one of the darkest moments in history."

"These images honor those whose lives were lost," said Debra Burlingame, whose brother, Charles, was the pilot of the plane that hijackers crashed into the Pentagon.

So here we have it. Some victims' families have come out to say the message Bush is advancing honors their fallen relatives. Reactions that are truly from the heart. And then you have the Left, positioning union bosses to claim outrage in the name of their disagreeing union members, and using questionable activist organizations, hidden behind layers of endowments and charities to exploit victims' families for the sake of gaining political power for their candidate.

It is truly sickening what they've come to and it makes me wonder what we're in for over the next eight months. God help this nation.

Here's the transcript of the conversion between Rush and Nancy, the bogus "registered Republican."

RUSH: Here is Nancy, as we go to the phones early on Open Line Friday. She's in Washington. Hi, Nancy.

CALLER: Hi, Rush, how are you?

RUSH: I'm doing wonderful. Thank you very much for calling.

CALLER: Great. Listen, I'm a registered Republican, and I find the ads very offensive and tacky. And I will be just as upset if John Kerry runs presidential ads using Vietnam as a backdrop.

RUSH: All right, now, you found the Bush ads offensive?

CALLER: Yes, I find them tacky. I think there are other ways he could have gone with his reelection ads, than to use September 11.

RUSH: Well, did he. I mean that's just one of many.

CALLER: Right.

RUSH: But let me ask now, what about the appearance that these family members seem to have been coached to say the same thing, does that bother you?

CALLER: You know what, I don't think that they've been coached. I think that they probably have spoken to one another and I think they are speaking out of grief and sorrow and the answers…

RUSH: Nancy.

CALLER: …and I don't think this necessarily comes from the Democratic Party…

RUSH: Nancy.

CALLER: …I think it comes from, yes?

RUSH: Who does it come from?

CALLER: It comes from just not knowing answers that they want to know, and maybe they'll never find out.

RUSH: Oh, come on. Nancy, wait, wait just a second now. Sitting here and, you know, complaining that Bush was reading to kids when 9-11 happened, that is hardly political. That's hardly something that a grieving family member would say. You know, these comments are designed to blame Bush for this.

CALLER: Well, I don't believe so.

RUSH: It's too synchronized, it's too specific, it's too similar. But here, let's go back to John Kerry. You said that you would also be offended by John Kerry if he ran…

CALLER: If he ran presidential ads.

RUSH: About Vietnam?

CALLER: Yes. With Vietnam in the backdrop.

RUSH: You want to listen to one?

CALLER: But is it a presidential ad?

RUSH: A-ha. Yes, it is.

CALLER: Okay.

RUSH: You want to hear it with me?

CALLER: Sure.

RUSH: You going to tell me what you honestly think about it?

CALLER: Yes.

RUSH: Okay. This ad ran in September 2003 during the Democratic presidential primaries. The video is a picture of John Kerry. Now, I must say that we got this ad off the Internet. We found it buried there. So it's got Internet quality here, but you'll still be able to hear it. It's a 30-second ad. Starts with a voice from John Kerry from 1971.

KERRY: How do you ask a man to be the last man to die in Vietnam? How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?

MALE ANNOUNCER: John Kerry, the 25-year-old boat commander who won three Purple Hearts and the Silver Star for bravery and came home and helped rally the nation against that war. Ever since he's been on the front lines of the fights that matter. A senator who defended a woman's right to choose, sounded the alarm on terrorism years before 9-11.

RUSH: Okay, Nance, why don't you tell us what you think of that.

CALLER: You know, I don't think that ad is the same type of add that Bush is using.

RUSH: Nancy, I love you.

CALLER: It's not.

RUSH: Nancy, Nancy, you are doing us so much, we busted you, we busted you.

CALLER: Why?

RUSH: You are not a Republican, you're not a Republican, and you have been had. We've got a John Kerry presidential ad bringing up Vietnam in a most disgraceful way, and then trying to say he sounded the alarm before anybody else did about 9-11, and you say, "well, it's not the same thing."

CALLER: It's not Rush.

RUSH: You were the one who said you would disapprove if John Kerry said the same thing going back to Vietnam. I just played you the ad.

CALLER: No, I said Vietnam in the backdrop.

RUSH: Did you hear the machine guns opening the ad?

CALLER: George Bush has nothing to do with September 11th. You know, that's my whole issue, and I've been a registered Dem... Republican my entire life. He wasn't there, you know, I just find it offensive.

RUSH: Wait a second. Wait a second. If he had nothing to do with 9-11, then why are you supporting these women who are out there complaining that he didn't do anything about it because he was reading to kids? Nancy, rehearse this before you call your next show. Consider this a rehearsal because if you try this on some other show, depending on the host you might get away with it, but we busted you. And you're a great sport, I appreciate it, but.

Folks, you people out there are thinking we set this up, and we don't set things up. I know, it's too good. In fact, Mr. Winterble said, "Can I run a call by you? I've got a Republican who agrees with these women, and she thinks that Kerry would be just as bad if he ran an ad." And I said, "Oh, give me that, wait till you hear cut 1."

Let's see. There's not enough time to take another caller. I'm still reveling, folks, I mean you dream for these moments as a host. What? [talking to program observer] What, the Kerry ad? The whole call? Oh, yeah, we'll play the whole call again. You mean just her call, not the ads, not the women, just her call? All right. Yeah. Okay, I'm promise, we'll play that call, because folks, you live for these days as a host, I'm telling you, when you set a trap. We didn't even set a trap. We didn't even set a trap, didn't need to set a trap. This woman just, she thought she was going to give Kerry a big boost, and we had the ad waiting for her. That's what I mean about more fun than a human being should be allowed to have. Nancy, I was telling you the truth. I love you. I really, really love you.

There's more at the link.

http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/daily/site_030504/content/truth_detector_2.member.html

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