SwiftVets.com

[fortdixlover]

The vaunted MSM (a.k.a. Fogosphere) has been reduced to counting beans. Not to issuing substantive debate or rebuttal to important issues, but to counting beans. And spinning the counts as well.

It's really pathetic. I feel sorry for these people, many of whom in the near future will need to register for unemployment due to "planned obsolesence."

-- FDL


http://www.philly.com/mld/philly/news/nation/9634434.htm

Posted on Sat, Sep. 11, 2004

Texas oilmen are biggest backers of anti-Kerry ad push
Among the main donors to Swift Boat Veterans for Truth is oil tycoon T. Boone Pickens, a report shows

By Meg Laughlin and Tom Infield
Inquirer Staff Writers

WASHINGTON - Texas oilmen, led by takeover specialist T. Boone Pickens, helped fuel the anti-Kerry advertising campaign of Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, a report filed yesterday shows.

Pickens contributed $500,000 to the group, the report said. A second oilman from Dallas, Albert Huddleston, contributed $100,000.

The group, whose attacks on the war record of Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry have attracted national attention, claims it has raised $6.7 million but portrays itself as a grass-roots effort thriving on small contributions.

"The average contribution to Swift Boat Veterans for Truth is $65," Weymouth Symmes, the group's treasurer, said earlier this week.

The report filed with the Federal Elections Commission yesterday detailed 683 contributions totaling just over $1.9 million, none of them less than $100. Federal law requires organizations such as the veterans group to show how they've paid for advertising within 24 hours of the ads' airing on television.

The group reported that it spent more than $700,000 to buy time for an anti-Kerry commercial now running on national cable television and paid for it with the contributions listed.

Pickens, 75, the founder of Mesa Petroleum, the largest independent oil and gas producer in the United States, made the largest contribution. A major Republican donor, he's previously supported both Bush and his father, former President George H.W. Bush.

Huddleston, 51, also is a major Republican donor. The chief executive of Hyperion Resources Inc., an oil and gas company, he raised at least $100,000 for Bush's 2000 campaign. He's also a heavy donor to Republican candidates in Texas, giving $704,500 in 2002, according to the nonpartisan group Follow the Money, which monitors Texas political contributions. Follow the Money said Huddleston also gave $68,000 to Texas Democrats that same year.

Mike Russell, who works for the Washington-area public relations firm Creative Response Concepts, which represents the Swift boat group, declined yesterday to discuss how Pickens or Huddleston had come to donate to the anti-Kerry effort.

"I'm not going to comment on any of our major donors," Russell said. "We're just not going to say anything other than we appreciate the support of major donors and minor donors. We appreciation donations of all kinds."

Russell said Swift Boat Veterans for Truth had received donations from 53,000 people, most of whom had contributed through the group's Web site. On Thursday alone, he said, 2,681 people had given $82,405.

"Like any organization, we have major donors and small contributors. I think the important thing is we have taken in a huge amount of grass-roots support."

A fuller accounting of the group's contributions is due in October.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Contact staff writer Tom Infield at 610-701-7622 or tinfield@phillynews.com.

[rb325th]

When will they do an expose on the Donors to Moveon and others? Oh that's right they are supportive of Kerry and it would not be in their favor to expose their own Hypocracy!
_________________
U.S. Army 1983-1995, 11C1P/11H2P NBTDT

[ashter]

The media and DNC are creating the biggest "Smoke Screen" to remove the focus from Kerry's Vietnam Issue. Look at how much time we have spent on finding out whether Bush was AWOL, a story that has already been substantiated earlier this year, and who's financing the SWift Boat Vets 527. The press is not allowing any questions about Kerry's time when he was AWOL for 2 + years.

And, honestly I dont know why the media is supporting Kerry at this time, he hasn't allowed any interviewing with any MSM for over a month.

[Doc Jerry]

Fortdixlover:

Dom G hammered the Philadelphia Slime this afternoon. He's not letting them get away with it.


Jerry

Medics, we're there when you need us.

[fortdixlover]