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WASHINGTON, Sept. 10 - Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, an advocacy group that jolted the presidential race with commercials questioning Senator John Kerry's military service, said it had raised $6.7 million in a windfall brought about by the group's high profile in recent weeks. Several of the largest donors are longtime supporters of President Bush, according to a financial disclosure report filed on Friday with the Federal Election Commission. The largest contributor was T. Boone Pickens, a famous Texas oilman and longtime Republican supporter who was a major political backer of Mr. Bush's father, who gave $500,000 to the Swift...

WASHINGTON - Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, the Vietnam veterans group that set out this spring to make an issue of Democrat John Kerry's 1971 anti-war stance, has grown into a well-organized political machine with a multimillion-dollar budget and a network of Republican-affiliated paid consultants. More ads are on the way, and the group is hoping to become even a stronger force against Kerry.

The Vietnam veterans group attacking Sen. John Kerry's military record has received $6.7 million in contributions from the public, it was announced Friday. Swift Boat Veterans for Truth said 53,068 individuals gave to the group's ad campaigns and more than 99 percent of that number gave $74 or less. A total of $3,870,430 was donated in contributions of $1,000 or less, while $462,175 came from 252 contributions of between $1,000.01 and $25,000. Three donations were between $50,000 and $100,000 and six donations were over $100,000, it said. "The revenue report proves without a doubt that we have received genuine grassroots...

This is an excerpt from the book Unfit for Command, copyright 2004 by John O'Neill and Jerome Corsi. The excerpt begins on page 79 immediately under the subtitle of "Ambush." A couple of days before his second Purple Heart, Kerry was also operating with Bob Hildreth, officer in charge of the accompanying boat. It was a day Hildreth would never forget. Kerry was the lead boat, with Hildreth behind. There was a small hole in a line of fishing stakes. Kerry's boat slipped through first. When Hildreth's boat started through, a mine went off, and then at least five rockets...

1. Prior to “Dewey Canyon III” Mike Thelan East Coast Coordinator for the VVAW tells a gathering of possible attendants that the VVAW’s official position is not to encourage anyone to commit acts of violence, but that VVAW activists are not “discouraging someone from “doing it”. VVAW activists are not “discouraging someone from committing acts of violence, pg 4 2. FBI files indicate that “VVAW is under active investigation in view of indications of communist and other subversive infiltration”. indications of communist and other subversive infiltration, pg 24 3. Speaker at VVAW antiwar rally Carl Moore makes following statements, “President...

CINCINNATI A heckler who briefly interrupted a speech by Democrat John Kerry today says he was assaulted by two men near him in the crowd before others shouted him down with cries of "Kerry, Kerry."Police said 48-year-old Michael Russell of Foster, Kentucky, complained that his neck was hurt by a man who put him in a headlock after Russell started to yell about Kerry's allegation of war atrocities after returning from Navy service in Vietnam.City police were investigating. No charges had been filed today.photo edited at trentonrevolution

WASHINGTON — Escalating the campaign warfare over the Vietnam era, a new group founded by a veteran Texas Democratic operative will announce today a television ad campaign reprising charges that President Bush failed to perform his service in the Texas Air National Guard while on temporary assignment in Alabama. The ad, funded by Texans for Truth, features Robert Mintz, a retired lieutenant colonel in the Alabama Air National Guard, who said he never saw Bush while serving in the same unit in 1972. "It would be impossible to be unseen in a unit of that size," Mintz charged in the...

Bill Means needed to talk to me, he said. Right away. I didn't ask why; I figured it had something to do with Vietnam. We'd talked briefly a couple of months earlier about the war and about Swift boats. Thirty-five years ago, as a Navy seaman, Means had patrolled the southern coastline of the South China Sea and the mangrove-dense rivers of the country's interior -- 12 months in all, mostly spent in the pilot house of one of those 55-foot, aluminum-hulled Navy fighting boats. About a week ago, we made tentative plans to talk again. Then I didn't hear...

Sept. 13 issue - John Kerry wanted to hit back. It had been a miserable August as he took incoming fire about his military service from a gang of hostile Vietnam vets. But no, campaign manager Mary Beth Cahill and other staffers argued, the Swift Boat ads would blow over. Finally, Kerry had had enough. For three or four days, as he campaigned across the country, Kerry ripped into Cahill, furious that the mostly baseless attacks on his valor were driving his numbers down. "He was very angry," one old friend says. "The calculation had been made that this wasn't...

LBT -=-=-

Sen. John Kerry's campaign biographer Douglas Brinkley said Sunday that if an ongoing Navy investigation into Kerry's military decorations turns up evidence of "purposeful" deception, it could spell doom for the top Democrat's White House bid. Praising reporter Thomas Lipscomb, who broke news of the Navy investigation on Friday, Brinkley told WABC Radio's Steve Malzberg, "Journalists are going to have to see whether there's a discrepancy on [the citations posted to Kerry's] web site - whether there's something wrong that's said there or not." "If so," said the "Tour of Duty" author, "Kerry would have to fix it immediately -...

Media wags will say it was the successful GOP convention that catapulted President Bush to a double-digit lead over John Kerry in Time magazine and Newsweek polls released this weekend. But insiders know that even before Republicans gathered in New York to re-nominate Bush, the Swiftboat Veterans for Truth had turned George Bush into a frontrunner for the first time since John Kerry locked up the nomination in January. The proof that the Swifvets had scored a direct hit against the SS Kerry came Thursday night, when the top Democrat staged an emergency rally to accuse Dick Cheney of dodging...

JOHN FORBES DUKAKIS It's hard to criticize John Kerry these days. Apparently, every criticism of him is unfair. At least, we're not supposed to criticize his time in Vietnam -- or even what he's said about Vietnam more recently -- because that would be a "smear" (even when the Kerry campaign admits, as it has regarding Kerry's Christmas-in-Cambodia claims, that he hasn't been telling the truth). . As he drew nearer, however, the woman suddenly ripped off her Cahill mask, behind which was ... Susan Estrich, Michael Dukakis' campaign manager! At that point, he woke up screaming. Ouch. The difference,...

I wish to ask for the prayers for a dear friend of mine. His name is Frank and he was a Swift Boat Vet that manned the twin 50 calibers and lived to tell about it. He has been diagnosed with stage 4 lung and brain cancer. On Thursday he was rushed by ambulance to the ER and has renal failure and a major infection invading his body. I know all about the rules of vanity posting but this man is a real gem of a man and truly needs all the prayers that our Freeper warriors can give to...

I will say that I have confidence in the swift boat guys, the people who are saying what they are saying and have written what they've written. So I have confidence in them. I wasn't there, Jim, to be able to see and judge all of that myself... MARK SHIELDS: Just so I understand, General, you talk about the swift boat, Kerry served in the swift boat, 13 guys, 12 of them said great skipper, great comrade, trust him, trust him with my life, saved my life, and so forth. But you say you are going to lead with the...

Bush/Cheney Lead Kerry/Edwards 54 to 43 Percent; in a Three-Way Trial Heat, Bush/Cheney Receive 13-Point Margin Bounce Bush Approval Rating Rises to 52 Percent; First Time Above 50 Since January; Majority (53%) Wants to See Him Re-Elected-Highest Since May 2003 27 Percent of Registered Voters Think Bush/Cheney Campaign Is Behind Swift Boat Ads NEW YORK, Sept. 4 /PRNewswire NEW YORK, Sept. 4 /PRNewswire/ -- Immediately following the Republican National Convention in New York, the latest Newsweek Poll shows that, in a two-way presidential trial heat, the Bush/Cheney ticket would win over a Kerry/Edwards ticket by 54 percent vs. 43 percent...

Shots of the American Flag, Jefferson Monument, Washington MonumentFootage of  Marine Honor GuardFootage of WWII Veterans Footage of anti-war rally/Medal Toss event, attended by John Kerry in Washington, April 23, 1971Interview With John Kerry, “Viewpoints”, 1971  Picture of John Kerry MVO:   “Symbols.  They represent the best things about America.Freedom … Valor … Sacrifice.Symbols, like the heroes they represent, are meant to be respected.Some didn’t share that respect…and turned their backs on their brothers.”KERRY:  “…renounce the symbols which this country gives… …and that was the medals themselves…I gave back – I can’t remember – six, seven, eight, nine…”MVO:  “How can the man...

OPINION -- There was something almost quaint about the Chicago Tribune’s editorial assertion August 24 declaring that the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth controversy surrounding John Kerry’s war record was over. Forgetting that we are in the midst of a “new media” revolution that allows everyday Americans to investigate truth claims on their own - without the clouded filter of biased journalists - the Tribune editors wrote, “That should be the end of the debate about John Kerry's experience in Vietnam.” Days before, the Tribune had injected itself prominently into the presidential campaign and the Swift Boat controversy by giving...

The New York Times has a new typewriter key for the Swift Boat Veterans story that reads: "the unsubstantiated charges of the Swift Boat Veterans." Unsubstantiated? It was Kerry – not the Swift Boat Veterans – who told The Washington Post: "I wish they had a delete button on LexisNexis." The Swift Boat Veterans haven't been forced to retract any of their story. Meanwhile, John Kerry has been issuing about a retraction a day since the Swift Boat Veterans started talking. Books Strongly Recommended! Christian Jihad: Two Former Muslims Look at the Crusades... Hillary's Secret War, Richard Poe So Many...

<p>Careful listeners will detect that John Kerry is a bit confused about the events of his brief encounter with the Vietnam War. Even the exact details of what have become defining events in his tour of duty — namely the winning of various medals — have become muddled. In the fog of war, it’s hard to keep your facts straight. How did I win this Purple Heart? Was the wound self-inflicted?</p>