A "mass movement" in America was faked to push campaign finance reform that would (supposedly) help Democrats win elections by handicapping the GOP's ability to out-raise them in campaign contributions.

As Ryan Sager of The New York Post discovered recently, the efforts that led to McCain-Feingold, Campaign Finance Reform was funded by Left-wing special interest groups. But worse than that, the funding went into setting up fake pro-reform groups, with Orwellian names you may have heard in the press: the Center for Public Integrity, the William J. Brennan Center for Justice, Democracy 21 and so on. Sager writes:

CAMPAIGN-FINANCE reform has been an immense scam perpetrated on the American people by a cadre of left-wing foundations and disguised as a "mass movement."

But don't take my word for it. One of the chief scammers, Sean Treglia, a former program officer of the Pew Charitable Trusts, confesses it all in an astonishing videotape I obtained earlier this week.

In the video tape, reglia admits that he can tell the story of how the American Left duped the country into passing Campaign Finance Reform because he no longer works for Pew research:

That story in brief:

Charged with promoting campaign-finance reform when he joined Pew in the mid-1990s, Treglia came up with a three-pronged strategy: 1) pursue an expansive agenda through incremental reforms, 2) pay for a handful of "experts" all over the country with foundation money and 3) create fake business, minority and religious groups to pound the table for reform.

"The target audience for all this activity was 535 people in Washington," Treglia says — 100 in the Senate, 435 in the House. "The idea was to create an impression that a mass movement was afoot — that everywhere they looked, in academic institutions, in the business community, in religious groups, in ethnic groups, everywhere, people were talking about reform."

He went on to explain that almost $140 million was spent to lobby for changes to our country's campaign-finance laws.

But this money didn't come from little old ladies making do with cat food so they could send a $20 check to Common Cause. The vast majority of this money — $123 million, 88 percent of the total came from just eight liberal foundations.

These foundations were: the Pew Charitable Trusts ($40.1 million), the Schumann Center for Media and Democracy ($17.6 million), the Carnegie Corporation of New York ($14.1 million), the Joyce Foundation ($13.5 million), George Soros' Open Society Institute ($12.6 million), the Jerome Kohlberg Trust ($11.3 million), the Ford Foundation ($8.8 million) and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation ($5.2 million).

The Left-Wing of America tried to wrap up elections in campaign finance reform that benefited them. What they did not count on was groups like The Swiftboat Veterans For Truth that were able to off-set the limits posed on the election camapigns and use the money for to buy Kerry-busting political ads that contributed to a Bush re-election, all thanks to McCain-Feingold, Campaign Finance Reform.

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From the 3-17-05 episode of "The Big Story w/ John Gibson":

A word about gay marriage: As you might have heard, a judge in San Francisco has ruled that it is unconstitutional for the state of California to ban gay marriage (search). That means all those same sex couples who were married by San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom can go back to thinking they are married.

Now, just to be clear on this, those same sex couples are something, but I am quite sure it is not married.

Why? Because marriage is something men and women do. They don't always do it well — you only have to look at the divorce rate, or the number of pregnant women killed by their spouse to realize that. But, nonetheless, for all its imperfections, for all the gory fun of divorce court, it is something that men and women do.

Why is it just men and women? Because since history has been recorded, chipped in stone, inked onto papyrus, scribed into great books or printed on your ink jet, the basic idea behind marriage has been to set up a system for the raising of kids.

The first knuckle-dragging people recognized they didn't want to raise their kids like the monkeys, so they set up another system.

Gays can't have kids — other than going to the abandoned kids store and getting one or two, or borrowing sperm from someone with more sperm than brains — so by definition they're out of the marriage game.

In theory, so would couples who get married in their eighties. Chances are good that no kids come out of that holy union. But it is at least theoretically possible. Not so with gays.

Now, gay couples should have certain rights of marriage — inheritance, insurance, visitation — all that lawyerly stuff.

But they should take the advice of a friend of mine who said he'd defend gays against any form of discrimination, but they had to pick a new word — marriage is taken.

Now what about this ruling that gay marriage is legal from the judge in San Francisco?

Well what about it? He's a judge in San Francisco — of course he says gay marriage is constitutional. You think he could live there if he said otherwise?

As they say in Jersey: "Fuhgedaboutit!"

That's My Word.

Watch John Gibson weekdays at 5 p.m. ET on "The Big Story" and send your comments to: myword@foxnews.com

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I guess they are calling this a "cease-fire" but I don't think that term really applies. Regardless, this is indeed a big step on the long road to solving the Israeli/Palestinian impasse.

CAIRO, Egypt (AP) - Palestinian militant groups agreed Thursday to a truce with Israel until the end of this year on condition that Israel halts violence against Palestinians and frees prisoners, participants at a meeting in Cairo said.

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon called the statement by Palestinians "a positive first step." A statement from Sharon's office said he made the remarks to Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, who called Sharon to fill him in on the talks between the Palestinian factions.

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According to The Associated Press:

The state House passed a bill Thursday that could keep Terri Schiavo alive, less than 24 hours before the severely brain-damaged woman's feeding tube is scheduled to be removed.

The Senate began debating a more limited version of the bill as lawmakers rushed to beat the scheduled removal of Schiavo's feeding tube.

The Federal Government is also getting involved along with The Whitehouse:

Late Wednesday, the U.S. House of Representatives passed legislation that would delay removal of the brain-damaged woman's feeding tube by moving such a case to federal court. Federal judges have twice turned down efforts by the parents, Bob and Mary Schindler, to move the case out of Florida courts, citing a lack of jurisdiction.

On Thursday, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., urged his chamber to save Schiavo.

"If we don't act or if somebody does not act, a living person who has a level of consciousness, who is self-breathing will be starved to death here in the next two weeks," Frist said.

At the White House, press secretary Scott McClellan said the case raises "a lot of complex issues" and declined to comment on specific legislation. But he said Bush "stands on the side of defending life."

Also, Schiavo's parents filed an emergency motion at the U.S. Supreme Court to stop the removal of her feeding tube so lower courts can consider whether their daughter's religious freedom and due process rights have been violated.

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The usual suspects from the MSM continue to tell America that Americans don't want private accounts as part of the overhaul for Social Security. The MSM refers to recent polls that they say suggest this is the case. Well, it isn't:

The Washington Post reported this poll result yesterday:

Would you support or oppose a plan in which people who chose to could invest some of their Social Security contributions in the stock market?
Support: 56%
Oppose: 41%
No opinion: 3%

Its pretty clear by this poll that Americans are interested in investing a portion of their Social Security taxes in private accounts that will yield a much higher rate of return on investment versus the present system. Thanks to Powerline for hitting us to this polling data.

UPDATE: Brendan Miniter of Wall Street Journal Opinion Journal writes this very compelling case for Private Accounts in Social Security.

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