This is my personal view and comments on the issues and events that I feel a need to talk about or express my view. You don't have to agree, but lets carry on a adult, discussion and maybe you will see it the right way, mine. ;)
OK if this is your first lady, what ya think??
Published on July 19, 2004 By ShadowWar In Politics
Anarchist 'Ruckus Society' trains
for blockades, chaos, disruptions

© 2004 WorldNetDaily.com


Some of the groups organizing protests at this summer's Republican National Convention in New York – including one anarchist outfit planning disruptions – get funding from a foundation chaired by Teresa Heinz Kerry, the wife of the presumed Democratic Party presidential nominee, reports Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin.

Heinz Kerry, worth as much as $1 billion according to some estimates, has directed donations in the millions to the Tides Foundation, a 28-year-old grant-making institution that funds some of the principal groups organizing demonstrations and disruptions of the GOP convention.

The umbrella coalition organizing the protests is called United for Peace and Justice – strongly critical of the war in Iraq. The coalition was sponsored by Ramsey Clark's International Action Center, which was funded by the Tides Center's Iraq Peace Fund and Peace Studies Fund. Clark's group also sponsored International ANSWER. Both groups are run by long-time communist revolutionaries.

Teresa Heinz Kerry's favorite charity has also funded The Ruckus Society, an anarchist group known for disrupting the World Trade Organization meeting in Seattle in 1999 and planning similar disruptions for the New York convention. The group has been training protesters for the GOP convention in the art of sit-ins and blockades.

Mrs. Kerry, working through the Howard Heinz Endowment, oversaw the donation of more than $4 million to the Tides Foundation between 1995 and 2001.

Other groups in the United for Peace and Justice Coalition funded by Tides include the American Friends Service Committee, MADRE, the Institute for Policy Studies, the American Civil Liberties Union and the National Lawyers Guild.

Leslie Cagan, United for Peace and Justice national coordinator, a long-time communist revolutionary, also runs International ANSWER, dominated by the Communist Workers World Party. The Communist Party USA is also one of the affiliated groups under the United for Peace and Justice coalition.

There were reports last week that some of the groups headed for New York have more in mind than waving placards, marching and listening to speakers denounce President Bush.

According to the New York Daily News, fringe elements are hoping to spark major disruptions "with a series of sneaky tricks – including fooling bomb-sniffing dogs on trains bound for Penn Station."

"Internet-using anarchists are telling would-be troublemakers to decoy specially trained Labrador retrievers with gunpowder or ammonium nitrate-laced tablets in a bid to halt trains or even spur the evacuation of Madison Square Garden," the paper reported.

The Republican convention will be held at Madison Square Garden Aug. 30 through Sept. 2.

New York City police have expressed concern about the way some of these groups have used the Internet to disseminate plans for disruption. Among those messages cited:

"Go to a rifle, pistol or skeet shooting range, spend an hour shooting to saturate clothing with smell of gunpowder, go directly to a New Jersey Transit, LIRR or subway train headed for Penn Station.
"Try to have at least two people on a train in different locations, sit or stand near the doors as the train approaches the station, try to get near police and dogs, loiter as long as possible around the dog, try to pet it if possible.
"If the dog alerts on your scent, do not leave or resist; the situation will cause a major disruption of the train schedule. ... If there is more than one person on the train that causes a dog to alert, you can bet that the train will not be going anywhere for a long time ... neither will any trains behind it.
"It is important that the police call in all possible resources to investigate the situation. ... This will result in the maximum disruption. ... With any luck, Madison Square Garden will be evacuated.
"Rush hours are ideal, the final night of the convention, very good, too."


This Article is from www.worldnetdaily.com. If this stuff is true, my o my would this not be a nice tidbit for the debates. " Senator Kerry, isn't it true your wifes foundations funds groups that train people to cause civil disruptions and conduct illegal demonstrations?" Ouch...

Comments
on Jul 20, 2004

This Article is from www.worldnetdaily.com. If this stuff is true, my o my would this not be a nice tidbit for the debates. "

and if its not true?   heres the entire text of the tides foundations press release on the subject. looks like kerry's wife is into some pretty outrageously scandalous stuff afterall huh? 

 this is the 2nd time in a week worldnetdaily has demonstrated its fact checking capabilities and/or journalisitc standards to be as bad if not worse than al jazeerah (you gotta really work to accomplish that)

Tides Foundation and Tides Center Statement Regarding Recent Scrutiny over Heinz Endowments

Date: March 11, 2004

Tides Foundation and Tides Center have come under attack in several opinion pieces recently appearing in media such as the The New York Post, The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Times, among others. The articles make false allegations relating specifically to Tides and the funding it receives from The Heinz Endowments, as well as Tides' support of a group called "September 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows." The allegations are without merit, consisting entirely of errors and innuendo.

Here are the facts: The Heinz Endowments have granted Tides Foundation $230,000 dispensed between 1994 and 1998. These grants were used solely to support a pollution prevention initiative and other environmentally friendly practices by industries in Western Pennsylvania. Tides Center, an independent organization providing administrative and financial services to hundreds of projects across the country, has received additional support from The Heinz Endowments specifically to support projects in Pennsylvania. The vast majority of the projects funded through these endowments were related to either environmental protection or youth education. No Heinz- related money has gone to fund September 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows. Teresa Heinz Kerry, the wife of Senator John Kerry, chairs The Howard Heinz Endowment and sits on Vira I. Heinz Endowment's board.

For the record, the Tides family of organizations is proud to provide support and services to Peaceful Tomorrows - a grassroots organization whose activities revolve around nonviolence and peaceful resolutions - through Tides Foundation, Tides Center, and Groundspring.org, an organization that provides training and web-based services for online fundraising. Tides Foundation has made four grants in 2002 and 2003 for a combined total of $34,665 to Peaceful Tomorrows. Peaceful Tomorrows has raised $19,097 through Groundspring.org since August, 2002.

Tides Foundation employs donor advised funds, the same financial vehicle administered in precisely the same way as the Fidelity Charitable Gift Fund and similar programs operated by Schwab, Vanguard, and more than 600 community foundations across the country. Tides works under the rigors of fund accounting, restricted grants, and annual audits, ensuring that all monies released by Tides are properly distributed and accounted for. Tides Center projects each raise funds for their individual program activities, with these funds being separately accounted for and administered. These funds are limited for the specific purposes for which they were given.

At Tides, our goal is a society based on fairness, equally shared economic opportunities, engaged and active citizens and environmental sustainability. In 2002 and 2003, Tides Foundation made more than 6,000 separate grants to nonprofit organizations totaling more than $100 million and Tides Center provides over 250 emerging projects with support services. Our work speaks for itself in the range of program activities that supports a diverse array of organizations working on projects from human rights to disaster relief and youth education.

Contact: Christopher J. Herrera
Tides Foundation
P: 415-561-6355
cherrera@tides.org
on Jul 20, 2004
kingbee: I'm not espousing what the previous post said, but your post doesn't really address it, does it? Your post addresses $230,000 between '94 and '98, but the previous post alleges four million dollars between '95 and '01.

The organizations mentioned in:

"The umbrella coalition organizing the protests is called United for Peace and Justice – strongly critical of the war in Iraq. The coalition was sponsored by Ramsey Clark's International Action Center, which was funded by the Tides Center's Iraq Peace Fund and Peace Studies Fund. Clark's group also sponsored International ANSWER. Both groups are run by long-time communist revolutionaries.

Teresa Heinz Kerry's favorite charity has also funded The Ruckus Society, an anarchist group known for disrupting the World Trade Organization meeting in Seattle in 1999 and planning similar disruptions for the New York convention. The group has been training protesters for the GOP convention in the art of sit-ins and blockades. "


...don't seem to be mentioned in your article, which seems to distance itself from:

"No Heinz- related money has gone to fund September 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows. Teresa Heinz Kerry, the wife of Senator John Kerry, chairs The Howard Heinz Endowment and sits on Vira I. Heinz Endowment's board."


I'm just curious if these two articles are even talking about the same allegations, since they don't appear to be addressing the same groups. I don't know that Ms. Heinz money has to go directly to the organizations in question, it would be bad enough to participate in an umbrella organization that would be open to such.

If you have anything relating to ShadowWar's original post, I'd like to read it.

on Jul 20, 2004
this is the 2nd time in a week worldnetdaily has demonstrated its fact checking capabilities and/or journalisitc standards to be as bad if not worse than al jazeerah (you gotta really work to accomplish that)


I think you may want to check this statement since your own research showed this:

Tides Foundation and Tides Center have come under attack in several opinion pieces recently appearing in media such as the The New York Post, The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Times, among others.


I think thats some pretty good company for wolrdnetdaily. And I agree with Bakerstreet. The response does not address the issues in the worldnetdaily piece. Maybe a little bit of miss-direction on the part of the org?. Or Sentaor Kerry?

Hmmmm

on Jul 20, 2004

If you have anything relating to ShadowWar's original post, I'd like to read it.

it relates directly in this way.  worldnetdaily has picked up and republished 'facts' from the source to which the tides press release was responding. 

im not sure im going to be able to paste in the heinz foundation's statement--which provides a pretty detailed chronology as well as link to a pdf file that lists each of its donations by date, amount and beneficiary--but ill try (it appears to be a huge graphic but...)   in the event im not successful, here's the url

http://www.heinz.org/index.asp?loc=K,K2025&title=The%20Truth%20About%20Heinz%20and%20Tides

on Jul 20, 2004

here's what youll find at that link:

A statement from Heinz Endowments President Maxwell King.

In recent weeks, The Heinz Endowments has been accused of using its funding of the Tides Center of Western Pennsylvania to advance a laundry list of partisan causes and fringe political groups. This accusation is simply wrong.

It originated in an opinion column written by a researcher for the conservative, Washington, D.C.-based Capital Research Center. The crux of CRC’s argument is that money directed by the Endowments to Tides is "fungible." By supporting projects through Tides, CRC alleged that Heinz has secretly funneled money to every other organization that has ever received funding through Tides Center and the separate Tides Foundation.

Since first being published in the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, CRC’s accusation has been picked up and expanded in opinion pieces in a number of newspapers, including the Wall Street Journal, the New York Post and the Washington Times. But not even these publications have leveled this allegation in actual news stories.

The reason why is obvious: The charge does not stand up to objective scrutiny. Four facts undercut it completely. First, by legally binding contract, every penny of Heinz’s support to Tides has been explicitly directed to specific projects in Pennsylvania. It cannot legally be redirected and is the exact opposite of fungible.

Second, the Tides Center is a provider of management and administrative services, and we have used it only for those services, not to advance Tides’ grantmaking agenda. Foundations from all across the country-many, like Heinz, with strong centrist agendas-use these services to incubate an array of nonprofit programs. So does the federal government. It is no more accurate to suggest that Heinz supports every one of these programs than it is to suggest that someone who contributes to a specific group through the United Way supports the agenda of every other United Way beneficiary.

Third, the projects we have supported through Tides speak for themselves. They include programs to test the career readiness of area high school students, protect Pittsburgh’s environment and retain young people in our region-hardly an extremist agenda.

Fourth and finally, information about every one of our Tides-related grants is and always has been readily available in our public filings, annual reports and here on our web site. Far from being secretive, we have been consistently open in detailing the nature of our grants to Tides and every other organization we fund.

Throughout its 63-year history, The Heinz Endowments has scrupulously observed both the letter and the spirit of the law barring foundations from partisan activity. That hasn’t changed. These accusations to the contrary are rooted in politics, not fact. They do a disservice to Howard Heinz Endowment chairman Teresa Heinz Kerry, whose stewardship of the Heinz family’s generous philanthropic legacy has been exemplary, and to our 16 other board members and 31 staff. Together, we remain committed to upholding the high ethical standards and proud traditions of one of America’s most respected charitable foundations.

To learn more, please click on the links below:

A complete list of Heinz Endowments grants to Tides and the projects they supported;

CRC’s original allegation as published in the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review on Dec. 14, 2003 - The Heinz Endowments have teamed with a secretive left-wing group;

The Endowments’ response as published in the Dec. 14th Tribune-Review column, Neither extreme nor secretive;

The Endowments’ response to the Dec. 14th Tribune-Review column, as submitted;

A second column, Playing Ketchup , published in National Review Online and the Tribune-Review, building on the allegation;

The Endowments’ unpublished response to the National Review Online (and the Tribune Review);

A Tribune-Review editorial published March 12, 2004, Follow the Money, criticizing the Endowments for attempting to respond to the allegations;

The Endowments’ second response , also never published;

The New York Post’s editorial (Mrs.) Kerry’s Cash Connection, published March 9, 2004;

The Endowments’ response;

The Wall Street Journal editorial, The Politics of 9/11 , published March 10, 2004;

The Endowments’ unpublished response;

The Washington Times’ editorial, Active measures , published March 10, 2004;

The Endowments’ response, Donations aren’t fungible, published March 13, 2004;

A Pittsburgh Post-Gazette report, Right zooms in on Heinz on where the attacks are coming from, published March 7, 2004;

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette’s editorial, Dishing the dirt, published March 14, 2004, dismissing the allegations;

Tides Foundation and Tides Center Statement Regarding Recent Scrutiny over Heinz Endowments.

Return to News Directory

on Jul 20, 2004

Maybe a little bit of miss-direction on the part of the org?. Or Sentaor Kerry?

maybe.  but it would appear much more likely its a lot of intentional deception on the part of those making the original allegations.