Posted on 05/21/2004 11:35:59 AM PDT by lilylangtree
Presumptive Democratic nominee John Kerry has pledged to refuse all "special interest" contributions. But Kerry and his wealthy wife--ketchup heiress Teresa Heinz Kerry--found a way to bypass campaign finance laws that limit her personal contributions to $2,000. Their conduit: a network of left-wing foundations and nonprofits that channel donations from the Heinz fortune to anti-Bush advocacy groups.
Eyebrows rose when the League of Conservation Voters (LCV), the environmentalist political lobby, jumped on the Kerry bandwagon with an early primary endorsement. Why Kerry? "A clue may be found in grants the Heinz Endowments of Pittsburgh made to environmental groups whose leaders sit on the LCV board of directors," reports the Capital Research Center, a watchdog group. "Teresa Heinz Kerry . . . is chairman of the Howard Heinz Endowment and a board member of the Vira I. Heinz endowment as well as chairman of the Heinz Family Foundation. The LCV Education Fund received $10,000 from the Heinz Family Foundation in 2001. More importantly, at least four members of the LCV board of directors lead environmental groups that received more that $1,000,000 from the Heinz philanthropies in the past three years."
Now, recall those "9/11 families" who denounced President Bush as "exploitative" for using the day's images in his TV ads. Well, it turns out they were members of a left-wing antiwar outfit, September Eleventh Families for Peaceful Tomorrows, representing only a handful of the 3,000 victims' families. Peaceful Tomorrows is a project of the Tides Center, a leftist incubator that sets up and runs "progressive" groups. For an eight-to-nine-percent service fee, the Center also launders millions in anonymous donor cash through its parent, the Tides Foundation, into the coffers of socialist, environmentalist, and antiwar groups.
According to Capital Research, notable nonprofits started, managed or funded by Tides include the Natural Resources Defense Council, Greenpeace, Union of Concerned Scientists, Environmental Working Group, and the Ruckus Society (the gang that rioted in Seattle in 1999). Other far-left Tides' recipients include the National Lawyers Guild, Physicians for Social Responsibility, Council on American-Islamic Relations, and the Bush-hating MoveOn.org.
Well, guess who is a mjor contributor to the Tides network?
Teresa Heinz Kerry, that's who. The Howard Heinz Endowment, which she chairs, poured over $4 million into the Tides Foundation between 1995-2001. Two other Heinz foundations she leads donated an additional $2 million.
When a few journalists connected the dots between Mrs. Kerry's Heinz Endowments, the Tides network, and the anti-Bush media blitz by Peaceful Tomorrows, all indignantly denied that their activities were coordinated or funds commingled.
Peaceful Tomorrows declared that it "has never received funding from the Howard Heinz Endowment, the Vira I. Heinz or Kerry families through Tides Foundation, the Tides Center or any other entity." Heinz Endowment's President Maxwell King insisted that they had "strong centrist agendas." And: "In fact, by legally binding contract, every penny of our support to Tides has been explicitly directed to specific projects in our region. It cannot legally be redirected and is the exact opposite of 'fungible."
Oh? The Endowments' direct contributions to the LCV and its board members make their claims of being political "centrists" laughable. And the politics of Tides--which passes foundation cash to hard-left groups--is obvious in the online databases of Capital Research Center and the Center for Consumer Freedom.
Then what of the claim that Heinz money simply passes through Tides to politically innocuous projects? On its Web site, Peaceful Tomorrows acknowledges that, "As our fiscal sponsor, the Tides Center provides administrative and financial services that allow the staff and membership of Peaceful Tomorrows to focus on work related to our mission."
In short, Tides facilitates overly anti-Bush operations, such as Peaceful Tomorrows and MoveOn.org, getting its operating funds from the service fees it charges. So even "innocuous" Heinz contributions passing through the Tides' conduit help support partisan efforts to defeat the president.
Call it a "Kerrying charge."
(Robert Bidinotto is an award-winning journalist, author, and lecturer. He publishes the anti-environmentalist Web site , and a Web log of political and cultural commentary: .)
Thanks. Appreciate the heads up on the other material.
ping
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