Teresa Heinz Kerry: Bag Lady for the Radical Left

Front Page Magazine ^ | 13 Feb 2004 | Ben Johnson

[goresalooza]

With Matt Drudge’s recent revelation that John Kerry is as faithful to his second wife as he was to his old Vietnam “brothers,” the senator’s presidential campaign may depend more than ever on the actions of his wife, Teresa Heinz Kerry. While the mainstream media has thus far overlooked the alleged infidelity, media outlets have also overlooked a far more important story: The former Mrs. John Heinz is also in bed – financially – with the radical Left.

Teresa Heinz Kerry has financed the secretive Tides Foundation to the tune of more than $4 million over the years. The Tides Foundation, a “charity” established in 1976 by antiwar leftist activist Drummond Pike, distributes millions of dollars in grants every year to political organizations advocating far-Left causes. The Tides Foundation and its closely allied Tides Center, which was spun off from the Foundation in 1996 but run by Drummond Pike, distributed nearly $66 million in grants in 2002 alone. In all, Tides has distributed more than $300 million for the Left. These funds went to rabid antiwar demonstrators, anti-trade demonstrators, domestic Islamist organizations, pro-terrorists legal groups, environmentalists, abortion partisans, extremist homosexual activists and open borders advocates.

During the years 1995-2001, the Howard Heinz Endowment, which Heinz Kerry chairs, gave Tides more than $4.3 million. The combined Heinz Endowments (composed of the Howard Heinz Endowment and the Vira I. Heinz Endowment) donated $1.6 million to establish the Tides Center for Western Pennsylvania, a Pittsburgh office of the San Francisco-based Tides Center. Since that time, the local branch has tirelessly pushed an anti-business agenda in the name of “preserving the environment.” However, it is the Tides Foundation’s national organization whose connections are most disconcerting.

The Tides Foundation is a major source of revenue for some of the most extreme groups on the Left. Tides allows donors to anonymously contribute money to a host of causes; the donor simply makes the check out to Tides and instructs the Foundation where to forward the money. Tides does so, for a nominal fee. Drummond Pike told The Chronicle of Philanthropy, “Anonymity is very important to most of the people we work with.” That becomes understandable when one views the list of Tides grant recipients. And who are the beneficiaries of this money?

The Antiwar Movement

Senator John F. Kerry has gone far with his nuanced view of Operation Iraqi Freedom. He voted for the war resolution but specified a litany of conditions the Bush administration must meet before he would support combat, then proceeded to vote against funding troops already in harm’s way – then claimed he had always supported the president when Saddam Hussein was captured. The grant recipients of the Tides Foundation, to which Kerry’s wife has steered more than $4 billion in “charitable” funds, understand no such nuance.

Tides established the Iraq Peace Fund and the Peace Strategies Fund to fund the antiwar movement. These projects fueled such hysterical protest organizations as MoveOn.org, the website that recently featured two separate commercials portraying George W. Bush as Adolf Hitler. (Howard Dean, not Kerry, won MoveOn.org’s “virtual primary.”)

The antiwar movement often boasted that MoveOn.org and the radical website Indymedia provided them “alternate media coverage.” Indymedia, an enormous news and events bulletin board with local pages in most of the world’s major cities, provided a vital link for radical activists often with violent agendas to coordinate their protests. Indymedia received $376,000 from the Tides Foundation.

The Institute for Global Communications is another leftist communications facilitator that received Tides grant money. IGC, which during the 1990s was the leading provider of web technology to the radical Left, links to “recommended sites” such as the War Resisters League (a group whose purpose is enabling peaceniks to refuse to pay taxes) and the leftist American Friends Service Committee. Most disturbing is the link to Ramsey Clark’s International Action Center, which has supported Slobodan Milosevic and North Korean strongman Kim Jong-Il. The IAC is the force behind International ANSWER, which sponsored the major antiwar (and anti-Bush) rallies before the invasion of Iraq. When ANSWER was outed as a Communist organization, United for Peace and Justice, headed by longtime Communist Party member Leslie Cagan was created as a "moderate" alternative. UFPJ is also a Tides grant recipient.The Tides-funded “A Better Way Project,” which opposed war in Iraq, also coordinated efforts of United for Peace and Justice and the Win Without War Coalition. The celebrity-laden Win Without War Coalition, along with the Bill Moyers-funded Florence and John Schumann Foundation, ran full-page ads in the New York Times opposing the War on Terrorism. This will not be the last overlapping of far-Left causes.

The Islamist Front

Immediately after 9/11, Tides formed a “9/11 Fund” to advocate a “peaceful national response” to the opening salvos of war. Part of the half-million dollars in grants the 9/11 Fund dispersed went to the New York Gay and Lesbian Anti-Violence Project to protect the rights of homosexual Arabs. The Foundation replaced the 9/11 Fund with the “Democratic Justice Fund,” which was established with the aid of George Soros’ Open Society Institute. (Currency speculator and pro-drug advocate Soros is, like Teresa Heinz Kerry, a major contributor to Tides, having donated more than $7 million.) The Democratic Justice Fund seeks to ease restrictions on Muslim immigration to the United States, particularly from countries designated by the State Department as “terrorist nations.”

Tides has also given grant money to the Council for American Islamic Relations. Ostensibly a “Muslim civil rights group,” CAIR is in fact one of the leading anti-anti-terrorism organizations within the Wahhabi Lobby, with links to Hamas. CAIR regularly opposes and demonizes American efforts to fight terrorism, claiming, for instance, that Homeland Security measures are responsible for an undocumented surge in “hate crimes.”

CAIR officials have reason to fight Bush’s anti-terrorism measures: all too many CAIR officials are on the record supporting terrorism. CAIR Executive Director Nihad Awad openly stated in 1994, “I am a supporter of the Hamas movement.” Community Affairs Director Bassem K. Khafagi has been arrested for visa and bank fraud. Randall Royer, a Communications Specialist and Civil Rights Coordinator at CAIR, was arrested along with a group of Islamic radicals in Virginia for allegedly planning jihad. CAIR has defended terrorist “charities” shut down by the Bush administration. Every few months some CAIR campus official is arrested for aiding and abetting terrorism.

The Legal Matrix

The Tides Foundation has funded a number of the pillars of the radical legal establishment. Chief among these is the National Lawyers Guild, which began as a Commnist front organization and is proud of its lineage. At its recent convention last October, the concluding speaker was Lynne Stewart, an indicted terrorist NLG lawyer arrested for helping her client – convicted 1993 World Trade Center bombing mastermind Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman – communicate with his terrorist cells in Egypt. In her speech, Stewart said she and her NLG comrades were carrying on a proud tradition of their forebears, past and present:

And modern heroes, dare I mention? Ho and Mao and Lenin, Fidel and Nelson Mandela and John Brown, Che Guevara who reminds us, “At the risk of seeming ridiculous, let me say that the true revolutionary is guided by a great feeling of love.” Our quests like theirs are to shake the very foundations of the continents.

More recently, the NLG has endorsed the March 20 call to End Colonial Occupation from Iraq to Palestine & Everywhere” organized by International ANSWER, and has posted a petition for “Post-Conviction Relief” for convicted cop-killer Mumia Abu-Jamal.

Tides’ Peace Strategies Fund has funneled money to the Center for Constitutional Rights. The CCR was stablished by Sixties radical William Kunstler, defender of the Chicago 8, and Arthur Kinoy. The two also had plans to establish a new Communist Party. Executive Director Ron Daniels has been honored by the Communist Party USA for his work. Daniels also has a long and cordial relationship with racist, anti-Semitic “poet laureate” Amiri Baraka. Since 9/11, CCR has channeled its efforts into fighting every effective Homeland Security measure. They have opposed increasing the government’s ability to wiretap Islamists suspected of plotting terrorism and moaned the sequestering of terrorist detainees at Guantanamo Bay was an unexcusable form of “racial profiling.” CCR President Michael Ratner has portrayed American soldiers as the offenders, guilty of 9/11 by their Middle East policy and guilty of keeping Islamist killers “shackled, hooded and sedated during the 25 hour flight from Afghanistan.” CCR has also defended Lynne Stewart’s “innocence” in aiding Sheikh Rahman’s Islamic Jihad.

Tides also funds the Alliance for Justice, a group dedicated to stopping Bush judicial appointees (a cause John Kerry can agree wholeheartedly endorse). Other Tides grants have gone to the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights and the Asian Law Caucus.

Environmental Extremism

The Tides Foundation has funded the Ruckus Society, a group of anarchist Greens who rioted and looted Seattle during the 1999 World Trade Organization riots. The Tides Center of Western Pennsylvania, established in Pittsburgh with Heinz Family funds, advocates for environmentalist measures that have helped put holes in the Rust Belt’s economy.

Tides money has also squashed free speech. Thanks to complaints generated by the Tides-funded Environmental Working Group, ABC cancelled a John Stossel piece exposing the misleading nature of environmental advocacy in public elementary schools.

Greenpeace is a well-known Tides grant recipient. Greenpeace is best known for its illegal actions, endangering humans in order to make a point about the environment. Tides gave Greenpeace a quarter of a million dollars over ten years.

Lest one think only Tides’ money is going to radicals, not funds directly controlled by Teresa Heinz Kerry, remember that Heinz money has repeatedly found its way to the Earth Island Institute. On September 14, 2001, the Institute’s website bore the headline “U.S. Responds to Terrorist Attacks with Self-Righteous Arrogance.”

Heinz family philanthropic funds have also had some dubious effects on the presidential race. The League of Conservation Voters has recently endorsed John Kerry’s presidential campaign. The Heinz Family Foundation gave LCV at least $20,000 and donated almost $250,000 to a member of the LCV board.

Perhaps this circular rotation of cash and endorsements should not surprise anyone. The grant-making institutions of the Left and their feverish recipients ultimately form an amorphous, leftist entity. One never needs to search very far to find connections between a leftist foundation and extreme advocacy groups. Teresa Heinz Kerry, George Soros, Bill Moyers and the Ford Foundation fund the Tides Foundation/Center; Tides funds the National Lawyers Guild, CAIR, MoveOn.org and United for Peace and Justice; those organizations then unite in fluid coalitions to protest against their common political enemies (Republicans). Ultimately, their representatives end up on Bill Moyers' PBS programs or active within the Democratic campaigns of their fundraisers. Between now and the election, these organizations will run constant interference for the Democratic presidential nominee (presumably Kerry himself): they will march en masse against the Bush administration again and again; they will file more lawsuits against the administration's Homeland Security measures, decry any effective response to terrorism, claim the United States is guilty of slaughtering Iraqi civilians and petition leftist judges to open America's borders to Islamist terrorists. After they help his election, President Kerry will be indebted to them. And then they will insist he begin implementing their political agenda.

Moreover, they will have a close ally in the East Wing of the White House, an ally more intimately tied to them than she is to her (second) husband. (She only adopted his last name and political party registration less than 18 months ago. “Politically, it's going to be Heinz Kerry,” she recently said. “But I don't give a sh-t, you know?”) Teresa Heinz Kerry will play a potent role in saving her second husband’s presidential campaign now – as Hillary Clinton did in 1992, and again during her husband’s impeachment. Like Hillary, in return for her service, Heinz may demand a place at the table for her pet causes. Caveat emptor.

[Carry_Okie]

The left, funded by the charitable foundations of major stockholders in global corporations, uses the Ruckus Society to paint the WTO as corporate globalism run amok. They'll demand that the UN is the only entity capable of bringing these greedy businessmen to heel. The UN is of course the most corrupt governance on earth, designed by the same communist international to serve their exclusive financial interests.

The WTO, the Ruckus Society/ANSWER/etc., the UN... thesis, anti-thesis, synthesis, both "sides" operating at the behest of the same monied class. Why? Because socialism consolidates control of the economy under government; then whoever controls the government controls the entire economy. Buy the right politicians, fund the media to get the masses to beg for more or pay off lawyers in the NGOs to get what you want through the courts, and presto, regulatory power puts your competitors out of business!

Socialism is reliable and safe, for them.

Here is a little quote written in 1933 from Homage to Catalonia, by George Orwell:

In reality, it was the Communists above all others who prevented revolution in Spain. Later, when the Right Wing forces were in full control, the Communists showed themselves willing to go a great deal further than the Liberals in hunting down revolutionary leaders.

[Snip]

Between the Communists and those who claim to stand to the Left of them there is a real difference. The Communists hold that Fascism can be beaten by alliance with sections of the capitalist class (the Popular Front); their opponents hold that this maneuver simply gives Fascism new breeding-grounds. The question has got to be settled; to make the wrong decision may be to land ourselves in for centuries of semi-slavery.

Orwell wasn't speaking theoretically. As a socialist and confidant of such Fabian luminaries as H.G. Wells and Julian Huxley, he knew the people of whom he spoke.

[jaz.357]

“Anonymity is very important to most of the people we work with.”

Wasn't that the MAFIA tag line?

[goresalooza]

You said it! I can't believe she's not being investigated bigtime by the Feds.

[SierraWasp]

Here's to trasparency!!! You are SO ON THE MONEY!!! Here! Here! You sure did illucidate that nicely. Bravo! Encore!!!

You know... They say that the most dangerous people on earth are those who "understand things!" I say, even more dangerous are those who help others "understand why!"

[freekitty]

No offense taken. Hitlery and Booba hopefully are in the past tense.

[thesummerwind]

By the way, for all those who consider Teresa a far left enviro whacko, bent on using environmental warnings to hinder capitalism............she has continually made speeches where she said, "see "global problems" as "global opportunities," and to remember that environmentalism and commerce need not be mutually exclusive".

[thesummerwind]

Make me some pickles too.

[thesummerwind]

The reason they still do so well in national elections is thier commrades in the media, and the uninformed who vote.

Yes, and one more reason they do so well is that as each year goes by, more voters are reliant on the government.

It's a trap for the ignorant. We are nearly completely a socialist state already. And as time goes by, it will be harder and harder to get REAL conservatives elected.

[lilylangtree]

Just read this. This needs dissemination far and wide. I'm sending to all in my email address book.

[mewzilla]

Bump for anyone who missed it.

[mewzilla]

Ping :)

[Prodigal Son]

Indymedia received $376,000 from the Tides Foundation.

So Kerry's wife funds a group that posts cartoons that glorify in the killing of our soldiers in Iraq?

Why is this not bigger news?

Look at some of these images Teresa Heinz finances- they're very disturbing.

http://dc.indymedia.org/media/all/display/16251/index.php?limit_start=696

http://dc.indymedia.org/media/all/display/16301/index.php?limit_start=660

http://dc.indymedia.org/media/all/display/16301/index.php?limit_start=660

http://dc.indymedia.org/media/all/display/16350/index.php?limit_start=624

http://dc.indymedia.org/media/all/display/16427/index.php?limit_start=552

http://dc.indymedia.org/media/all/display/16285/index.php?limit_start=672

http://dc.indymedia.org/media/all/display/16729/index.php?limit_start=336

http://dc.indymedia.org/media/all/display/16957/index.php?limit_start=168

http://dc.indymedia.org/media/all/display/17065/index.php?limit_start=96

http://dc.indymedia.org/media/all/display/17121/index.php?limit_start=36

http://nyc.indymedia.org/media/all/display/12828/index.php?limit_start=192

http://nyc.indymedia.org/media/all/display/13058/index.php?limit_start=24

[Prodigal Son]

There's a lot more of this out there too btw.

[Prodigal Son]

I posted one link twice.

Meant to post this one instead:

http://dc.indymedia.org/media/all/display/16341/index.php?limit_start=624

[lainde]

I just saw this...It's horrible! Does she have plausible deniability by saying she did not knowingly fund Indymedia thru the Tides or do we know Heinz is directly connected to to funding this despicable company. Isn't the Tides just a glorified money laundering scheme where you can secretly fund an organization without publicity?

[Prodigal Son]

Thank you. I have tried to show these to many freepers on several different threads and nobody is the least bit interested. I have not been able to figure out why. It sickens me deeply.

Kerry wants to become commander in chief of our military while his wife's money goes to this type of stuff.

I would think that would be an instant disqualifier but, like I said, other freepers don't seem too interested.

Thanks for replying ;-)

"Does she have plausible deniability by saying she did not knowingly fund Indymedia "

I don't know. But it would be a victory if she denounced an organization that she's been funding. It would also draw some attention on this type of thing if the media asked her questions about it. Her answers and her husband's would be bound to be interesting at least.

The bottom line is- it's her money. It's making its way to this website that sponsors these images.

[goresalooza]

Great point! The vast leftwing libmedia conspiracy are united to defeat Bush and they will sit on all negatives for Kerry, no matter who suffers. It's a shame that some Americans are this unpatriotic. I am hopeful that Kerry won't get one single military vote.

[Prodigal Son]

Could I ask you what you thought about those images? I'm just curious. I find them totally appalling.

[lainde]

You know I bumped that article for weekend reading. Have a sick kitten on my hands and have been doing Pedialyte feedings all night and taking little FR breaks. But I remember initially skimming the article and realized, just from a cursory reading, Theresa was funding some disturbing, radical organizations. My antennae really went up when I saw the CAIR connection. I had already done some independent snooping and realized the Heinz foundation had given awards to Andrea Mitchell and someone else at CNBC. His coverage by the media is undoubtedly affected by these kinds of connections. Tried to do an in depth search of Heinz Philanthropy finances...Came up empty handed even though they are supposedly "open" about their money distribution. They are very vague about the specific distribution of funds. There is soooo much disturbing about this candidate and his (ironically) "special interest" deep pockets, it's sometimes overwhelming. I personally think the intern is a distraction from more serious issues. However, it may resonate with voters that just don't want to contemplate Monica redux. I'm amazed at the diligence of FR posters and am grateful for the internet as a news source that cannot be ignored. Thank you for posting the links...Again, I stand in awe of Freepers!

[Prodigal Son]

Thank you for posting the links...

Thanks.