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I've seen this allegation before:
Certain Republican groups claim that Kerry's wife Teresa supports a surprising variety of anti-American causes including Arab terrorists via the Heinz Foundation's donations to the Tides Center.
Here is the straight truth.
(1) The Tides Center received over five times more grant money during a single year (1991) from Bush than from the Heinz Foundation during the history of their relationship (1994-1998).
In fact, money goes to Tides from a wide array of legendary philanthropies including Pew Charitable Trusts, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Richard and Rhoda Goldman Fund.
(2) Isn't that bad?
Are the Bush and Kerry families both really supporting terrorists?
No.
Tides is basically a donor-advised fund. Donations are directed towards the projects which the donors have selected.
For example, the grants from the Heinz Foundation were used solely to support the pollution prevention initiatives in Western Pennsylvania which were chosen by the Heinz Foundations (Sustainable Pittsburgh, Keys2Work, Cool Space Locator, and Youth Places).
I'm not a Bush supporter, but I have a hunch that Bush's donations were not directed to terrorists either.
Accusing Kerry or Bush of supporting terrorism by working with Tides is analogous to someone accusing me of supporting terrorism since I deposit my salary with Citizen's Bank, supposing that the 9/11 hijackers bought their box cutters with funds in a Citizen's Bank checking account.
(3) Well shouldn't someone at Tides be responsible for this?
Well, that's assuming that the donations to these organizations existed, and that the organizations do the things which the Republicans accuse them of doing. Let's go through the ones mentioned in the email to this list. (I've seen even longer and more fanciful lists. Perhaps the story gets richer with each retelling as Republicans pad the list with their least favorite organizations.)
- Donations to the International Action Center.
The Tides organization has made no grants to this organization, and has no records of any communications with the organization.
- Donations to the Democratic Justice Fund
The Tides organization admits to not only supporting this fund, but actually creating it. However, the fund does not "seek to ease restrictions on Muslim immigration from 'terrorist' states".
The fund was created after 9/11 in response to hate-crimes against Arabs and those who look like Arabs.
- Donations to the Council on American Islamic Relations
As Part of the Tides 9/11 fund (which the Heinz Foundation did not fund), the Tides foundation made a one-time $5,000 grant to CAIR specifically for their "Interfaith Coalition Against Hate Crimes" project in 2002 in Southern California. According to CAIR, they have no ties with any violent or discrimatory organization. (www.cair-net.org)
- Donations to the National Lawyers Guild
Tides has granted about $30,000 over the last 10 years to support the National Lawyers Guild "one of the oldest and respected civil rights organizations in the country." They seek to "eliminate racism, safeguard and strengthen the rights of workers, farmers and minority groups." (www.nlg.org)
- Barrio Warriors
Indeed they have received $7,000 from Tides over the last 3 years, but they do not seek to return Arizona, California, New Mexico or Texas to Mexico! What they do is work with native Americans and Hispanics to break the cycle of gang violence.
(4) Financially supporting terrorists has long been a Federal crime. If anyone had SERIOUS information about someone doing this, they would give this information to a district attorney for possible prosecution, not to prospective voters like us!
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For more details debunking these myths, please visit the Tides website
The people who invented these spurious accusations are trying to defraud us of a serious debate of the real issues, besmirching this Presidential campaign with mud-slinging.
I doubt the Tides organization is up to no good, but even if they were that would actually implicate the Bush family more than the Kerry/Heinz family.
Those who have spread these accusations I accuse only of too much willingness to believe anything bad about Kerry, and too little initiative to check out the facts for themselves.
> The uninformed will never hear the truth from the press, who wants Kerry elected!
I guess the uninformed get their information from spam on the internet.
For a serious debate of the ISSUES in this presidential election, I invite you all to attend the discussion at the Suburban JCC B'nai Aaron. See www.loebtree.com/kerry.html#9 for details. [The debate has already taken place. See my opening statement, closing remarks, or order a DVD.]
-----Original Message-----
So how does Mrs. Heinz Kerry spend John Heinz's money?
> Just one example: According to the G2 Bulletin, an online intelligence newsletter of WorldNetDaily, in the years between 1995-2001 she gave more than $4 million to an organization called the Tides Foundation.
> And what does the Tides Foundation do with John Heinz's money? They support numerous antiwar groups, including Ramsey Clark's International Action Center. Clark has offered to defend Saddam Hussein when he's tried.
> They support the Democratic Justice Fund, a joint venture of the Tides Foundation and billionaire hate-monger George Soros. The Democratic Justice Fund seeks to ease restrictions on Muslim immigration from "terrorist" states..
> They support the Council for American-Islamic Relations, whose leaders are known to have close ties to the terrorist group, Hamas.
> They support the National Lawyers Guild, organized as a communist front during the Cold War era. One of their attorneys, Lynne Stewart, has been arrested for helping a client, Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman, communicate with terror cells in Egypt. He is the convicted mastermind of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.
> They support the "Barrio Warriors," a radical Hispanic group whose primary goal is to return all of Arizona, California, New Mexico, and Texas to Mexico.
> Teresa Heinz Kerry is the ultra rich fairy godmother of the radical left. The uninformed will never hear the truth from the press, who wants Kerry elected!
Daniel E. LOEB, eMail: daniel.loeb at verizon.net
