colt

Rezko sentencing date canceled as deal sought

By MIKE ROBINSON – 1 day ago

CHICAGO (AP) — A federal judge canceled convicted fundraiser Antoin "Tony" Rezko's sentencing date Wednesday and one of his lawyers said he is working with federal prosecutors in hopes of getting a break for his client.

The decision to postpone the Oct. 28 sentencing barely stopped short of confirmation that Rezko is spilling his secrets to federal prosecutors. Speculation that Rezko is telling what he knows about Illinois political corruption has swept through Chicago's federal courthouse for weeks.

"We are trying to work toward an agreement that would affect sentencing," defense attorney Bill Ziegelmueller told reporters after the two-minute hearing before federal Judge Amy J. St. Eve. "But obviously no agreement is in place."

Rezko was a major political fundraiser who bankrolled campaigns of both Gov. Rod Blagojevich and Sen. Barack Obama. But he did not supply any money to Obama's current campaign and the Democratic candidate for president has not been accused of any wrongdoing.

Rezko was not at Wednesday's hearing. Prosecutors left the courtroom quickly and breezed down the hall without stopping to answer questions.

St. Eve canceled the October sentencing date and set a date for a fresh hearing Dec. 16 — enough time to see how valuable Rezko's information could turn out to be.

Rezko was convicted in June of plotting with admitted fixer Stuart Levine to launch a $7 million scheme to use clout with Blagojevich's administration to squeeze kickbacks out of a contractor and money management firms wanting state business.

Several of the convictions carry maximum sentences of 20 years. Rezko wouldn't be expected to get that much time for a first offense but still would be looking at years in federal prison. Helping prosecutors could reduce the sentence.

WorldNetDaily Exclusive
Proof Obama backed ruthless, foreign thug
Set up direct Senate contact for Kenyan opposition leader

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Posted: October 10, 2008
12:05 am Eastern

By Bob Unruh
© 2008 WorldNetDaily

 

Sen. Barack Obama designated a personal aide as his direct contact for the 2007 Kenyan presidential campaign of Raila Odinga, who later was appointed prime minister after his election loss was followed by widespread, deadly violence that destroyed or damaged 800 Christian churches, according to e-mails obtained by WND senior staff writer Jerry Corsi during a trip to Kenya.

Corsi attempted to release this and other information at a Tuesday press conference in Nairobi. The WND reporter and No. 1 New York Times bestselling author was detained by Kenya security officers as soon as he entered the hotel to make his presentation. He was held incommunicado and without food for the entire day before being permitted to board his regularly scheduled flight out of the country to London, where he is currently recuperating from the ordeal.

As WND has reported, Obama openly campaigned for Odinga during the Illinois Democrat's 2006 Senate "fact-finding visit" to Kenya.

Odinga called for protests over alleged voter fraud after losing the December 2007 general election. The resulting protest violence left an estimated 1,000 members of the dominant Kikuyu tribe in Kenya dead and an estimated 500,000 displaced from their homes.

The links between Obama and Odinga were documented by copies of two e-mails obtained by Corsi during his meetings in Kenya with various government officials and others.

The e-mails, apparently sent by Obama himself, regarded the senator's aide, Mark Lippert. The e-mails were provided to WND by an insider in Kenya who fled Odinga's Orange Democratic political party and requested anonymity because of the danger of retaliation

The e-mails, identified as coming from Obama's Senate office, are addressed to "railaaodinga" at a yahoo.com address.

A WND e-mail to the same Obama address generated an automated response and a list of contacts for Obama's offices. A WND e-mail sent to the Odinga e-mail address didn't generate a response.

One e-mail purportedly from Obama, dated Dec. 22, 2006, read, "I will kindly wish that all our correspondence [be] handled by Mr Mark Lippert. I have already instructed him. This will be for my own security both for now and in future."

It is reproduced here with the e-mail address of the person who forwarded it to WND redacted:

Lippert is a long-term Obama Senate staff member identified by the Chicago Sun-Times as a member of Obama's "inner circle of foreign policy experts." The Sun-Times has said if Obama is elected president, his secretary of state and national security advisers are expected to come from this inner circle.

In December 2006 Odinga was in the early stages of planning to run as the ODP candidate against President Mwai Kibaki.

The e-mails from Obama's office to Odinga's presidential campaign seem to show Obama and Odinga, who once told the BBC he is Obama's cousin, had discussions about Odinga's 2007 campaign.

WND was unable to reach the Obama campaign for a comment, as the campaign telephone system disconnected a WND call three times in a row without any provision to leave a message.

Get the book that started it all – Jerome Corsi's "The Obama Nation," personally autographed – for only $4.95, available today, but only from WND!

The former ODM official who provided the e-mails to WND asked for anonymity because of concerns the disclosure of his identity could endanger his life in a volatile political atmosphere in Kenya where Odinga's fellow Luo tribal members staged sometimes violent protests against Kibaki's supporters, who primarily are Kikuyu.

Sen. Obama's relatives in Kenya are Luo.

The former ODM official reported abandoning the ODM and opposing Odinga because of concerns Odinga had manipulated tribal violence in Kenya to gain political power.

 

we should not forget about who else obama hangs out with and his wife as well!

ELECTION 2008
Farrakhan on Obama: 'The Messiah is absolutely speaking'
'Barack has captured the youth,' will bring about 'universal change'

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Posted: October 09, 2008
8:03 pm Eastern

© 2008 WorldNetDaily

 

Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, another powerful Chicago-based political figure associated with the Rev. Jeremiah Wright and other long-time associates of Democratic Party presidential candidate Barack Obama, is leaving no doubt about what he thinks of the leader in the campaign for the White House.

He says when Obama talks "the Messiah is absolutely speaking."

You can watch it for yourself on a newly posted YouTube video.

Addressing a large crowd behind a podium with a Nation of Islam Saviour's Day 2008 sign, Farrakhan proclaims,

"You are the instruments that God is going to use to bring about universal change, and that is why Barack has captured the youth. And he has involved young people in a political process that they didn't care anything about. That's a sign. When the Messiah speaks, the youth will hear, and the Messiah is absolutely speaking."

At the media watchdog blog NewsBusters, P.J. Gladnick writes, "Imagine the excitement of the mainstream media if they had discovered that some preacher up in Alaska had declared Sarah Palin to be like a deity? Well, the same basic thing happened when the Supreme Minister of the Nation of Islam, Louis Farrakhan, declared Barack Obama to be a messiah.

"I believe this messianic pronouncement by Farrakhan was made last February but the video was uploaded to YouTube just yesterday. … I don't know which is creepier, the pronouncement of Obama as messiah by Farrakhan or that strange cultish smile on his face," Gladnick says.

It's not the first time the subject has come up. WND reported when another Internet site, called "Is Barack Obama the Messiah?" raised questions.

The website captured the wave of euphoria that followed the Democratic senator's remarkable rise to power within the Democratic Party.

The site was laced with photos and magazine covers illustrating the theme, topped by a Obama quote strategically ripped from a Jan. 7 speech at Dartmouth College just before the New Hampshire Primary in which he told students, "… a light will shine through that window, a beam of light will come down upon you, you will experience an epiphany, and you will suddenly realize that you must go to the polls and vote" for Obama.

MSNBC anchor Chris Matthews also previously claimed he felt a "thrill going up my leg" listening to an Obama speech.

Gladnick writes that Obama has a charisma that goes beyond "his youthful vigor, or handsomeness, or even inspiring rhetoric."

"Bill Clinton, with all his effortless, winking charm, didn't have what Obama has, which is a sort of powerful luminosity, a unique high-vibration integrity," "Gladnick says. "Dismiss it all you like, but I've heard from far too many enormously smart, wise, spiritually attuned people who've been intuitively blown away by Obama's presence - not speeches, not policies, but sheer presence - to say it's just a clever marketing ploy, a slick gambit carefully orchestrated by hotshot campaign organizers who, once Obama gets into office, will suddenly turn from perky optimists to vile soul-sucking lobbyist whores, with Obama as their suddenly evil, cackling overlord."

Get the book that started it all – Jerome Corsi's "The Obama Nation," personally autographed – for only $4.95, available today, but only from WND!

On the YouTube website, several people participating in a dialogue dismissed any spiritual hype and pinpointed their concerns.

"Let us pretend there is nothing wrong with obama … I think he should at least clear up that lawsuit about where he was actually born before election day," wrote one, citing persistent Internet suspicions that his reported Hawaii birthplace isn't accurate.

"I am not one of his sheep," said another.

"How much more have (sic) to come out on Obama before the O-Bots put down the kool-aid and say ENOUGH!" added a third.

"Not sure the Obama team will be thrilled about yet another crazy association," added another commenter on the NewsBusters forums page. Previous reports have documented Obama's links to Kenyan opposition leader Raila Odinga, onetime Weatherman bombing suspect Bill Ayers and Rev. Jeremiah Wright, who proclaimed a black liberation theology for 20 years while Obama was a member of his church, demanding that God "d***" America.

WND also reported when Rush Limbaugh criticized Democrats who were comparing Obama to Jesus and Gov. Sarah Palin to Pontius Pilate.

"I know Jesus Christ. I pray to Jesus Christ all the time," said Limbaugh." I study what Jesus Christ did and said all the time, and let me tell you something, Barack Obama, you are no Jesus Christ."

He also attacked Obama's stances for abortion and sex education for children in kindergarten, saying, "I can't find any such references to Jesus promoting infanticide nor do I find any references to Jesus Christ suggesting sex education be taught to 4- and 5-year-olds, but I'm still looking in the New Testament and I'll let you all know if I come up with anything."

Democrats, including party strategist Donna Brazile and Rep. Steve Cohen, D-Tenn., made nearly identical biblical comparisons of the characters in this presidential election, which Limbaugh traced back to a Sept. 4 posting on a Washington blog.

"Barack Obama was a community organizer like Jesus," Cohen said during a one-minute speech on the floor of the U.S. House yesterday. "Pontius Pilate was a governor."

Voter-fraud task force raids office backing Obama S.A. Miller (Contact)
Wednesday, October 8, 2008

A Nevada voter-fraud task force Tuesday raided the state headquarters of a Democrat-allied organization that works to get low-income people to vote, setting off a skirmish over efforts to expand the electorate on behalf of Sen. Barack Obama.

Authorities searched the Las Vegas office of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, or ACORN, which is accused of submitting multiple voter registrations with duplicate and false names, including names of former Dallas Cowboys players.

Bob Walsh, a spokesman for Nevada Secretary of State Ross Miller, a Democrat, whose office leads the task force, stressed that ACORN was not charged with a crime but served with a search warrant as part of an ongoing investigation.

"We went in and seized computer equipment and documents," he said.

Republicans accused the Obama campaign of associating with a group known for signing up unqualified voters, and which has been accused of submitting fraudulent or inaccurate voter registrations in Connecticut, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Indiana and Wisconsin.

The Obama presidential campaign and the Democratic National Committee declined to comment on the raid.

But Bertha Lewis, ACORN's interim chief organizer in Las Vegas, called it a political hit job and said the organization for months had tried in vain to work with Nevada elections officials to identify potentially fraudulent voter applications.

"Today's raid by the secretary of state's office is a stunt that serves no useful purpose other than discredit our work registering Nevadans and distracting us from the important work ahead of getting every eligible voter to the polls," she said.

The Republican Party has long clashed with ACORN, including successfully fighting Democratic efforts to include $20 billion for the group's homeownership program from the $700 billion economic rescue approved last week.

Republicans say the group is a partisan player that engages in unscrupulous election practices. They point to 12 ACORN members convicted of voter fraud in Missouri in 1986 and to the organization's entry into a 2006 consent decree in Washington state to refrain from improper voter registration activities or else face criminal prosecution.

"Our calling it quasi-criminal organization, we don't say that lightly," said Sean Cairncross, chief counsel to the Republican National Committee. "When you have your office raided by law enforcement agencies, it is not an indication that you are in compliance with the law."

The Las Vegas office was raided the same day Republicans were complaining about ACORN's activities in northwestern Indiana, where news reports say local elections officials think the group submitted hundreds of bad voter applications.

Voter registration is key to the Democrats' election strategy. First-time voters - especially students and minorities - helped fuel Mr. Obama's primary wins, and his campaign is looking for the same results to capture swing states such as Nevada on Nov. 4.

In the swing state of Pennsylvania, which is a must-win on the electoral map for Mr. Obama, a record 8.6 million have registered for the presidential election with the number of Democratic voters up 13 percent compared with Republican ranks shrinking by 1 percent, according to early totals released by state election officials.

While Democrats have focused on expanding turnout, Republicans have put their efforts into trying to prevent election fraud. They have pushed measures to clean the rolls of voters who have died or moved, and to require voters to show identification at the polls.

ACORN recently concluded its Project Vote registration drive that signed up more than 1.3 million voters in 21 states, which was the most successful drive in the group's 38-year history.

On Tuesday, Sen. John Ensign, Nevada Republican, called for the suspension of federal payments to ACORN as part of an affordable housing fund run by mortgage buyers Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

Associated Press An investigator carries a box of evidence seized from the ACORN office in Las Vegas on Tuesday. The raid was part of a voter-fraud probe.

"With the government takeover of Fannie and Freddie, the government will be taxing itself to create a backdoor slush fund, and we must prevent these taxpayer dollars from going toward ACORN," Mr. Ensign said. "With the recent news tying ACORN with voter fraud, suspending these funds is even more urgent."

The day after the 2006 congressional elections Sen. Charles E. Grassley of Iowa, the top Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, asked the Internal Revenue Service to consider suspending ACORN's tax-exempt status. He cited the indictments of four ACORN employees in Kansas City, Mo., on charges they submitted false voter registrations. "Engaging in voter fraud is not a charitable activity," Mr. Grassley said at the time.

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Fraud, discrimination claims roil huge voter registration

BY BILL DOLAN
bdolan@nwitimes.com
219.662.5328 | Tuesday, October 07, 2008

CROWN POINT | New voter registrations closed Monday in Lake County with possible record-breaking numbers and simmering allegations of fraud and racial discrimination.

Elections board Director Sally LaSota said more than 12,000 voter registration forms are waiting to be processed from recent days before the county knows how many potential voters are ready to cast ballots in the Nov. 4 general election.

"It may be a record," she said.

Porter County has processed at least 3,500 voter applications since the spring primary in May, officials there said.

However, the large influx has brought new controversies.

LaSota said Monday representatives of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, or ACORN, a grassroots activist group conducting registration drives, dropped off 2,000 new voter applications last week in Lake County.

"About 1,100 are no good," she said.

LaSota said the flawed forms are incomplete or contain unreadable handwriting -- similar to hundreds of other forms ACORN produced prior to this week. She said some ACORN vote canvassers apparently pulled names and addresses from telephone books and forged signatures.

Charles Jackson, communications director for ACORN, said Monday its administrators screened out the 1,100 registration forms in question and warned county officials the documents were suspect. He said ACORN left the final decision to discard the forms to county officials.

He said ACORN has fired and reported to law enforcement any employees suspected of vote fraud.

"We consider it stealing from ACORN," Jackson said.

Lake County Republican Chairman John Curley said Monday the ACORN registration drive is the main reason he opposes the opening of early voting centers in Gary, Hammond and East Chicago.

He filed a lawsuit last week in state and federal courts to stop the three branch offices from opening Monday. County officials agreed last week to delay opening the early locations until U.S. District Court Judge Joseph Van Bokkelen rules on the matter later this week.

Curley said opening too many early voting locations would strain the county election staff's efforts to stop people from using fraudulent registrations.

Jay Kenworth, a spokesman for the Indiana Republican Party said Monday, "We are obviously deeply disturbed by the news of these fraudulent registrations."

An attorney for the Indiana State Conference of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, filed papers in federal court alleging Curley's opposition to early voting was an unconstitutional to discriminate against black and Hispanic voters of the county.

Registration details

Today is the last official day to register in Illinois to vote on Nov. 4. There will be a grace period from Wednesday through Oct. 21 at the Chicago Board of Election office at 69 W. Washington St. in Chicago. Ballots can be cast at the same time. If you live in Chicago, check your registration status at http://chicagoelections.com. If you live in suburban Cook or Will counties, find links to those sites on the chicagoelections home page. Copyright © 2008 nwi.com

Will MSM Report on Obama Membership in Socialist New Party? By P.J. Gladnick (Bio | Archive)
October 8, 2008 - 16:15 ET

• 
• 

The mainstream media thought that the membership of Todd Palin, who is not a candidate for any office, in the Alaska Independence Party important enough to report in such outlets as the Los Angeles Times, MSNBC, and the New York Times, among others. So now that Barack Obama's membership in the far left New Party has been unearthed, will they report his membership in that Socialist organization?

Proof of Obama's membership in the New Party was discovered by the Politically Drunk On Power blog:

In June sources released information that during his campaign for the State Senate in Illinois, Barack Obama was endorsed by an organization known as the Chicago "New Party". The 'New Party' was a political party established by the Democratic Socialists of America (the DSA) to push forth the socialist principles of the DSA by focusing on winnable elections at a local level and spreading the Socialist movement upwards. The admittedly Socialist Organization experienced a moderate rise in numbers between 1995 and 1999. By 1999, however, the Socialist 'New Party' was essentially defunct after losing a supreme court challenge that ruled the organizations "fusion" reform platform as unconstitutional.   After allegations surfaced in early summer over the 'New Party's' endorsement of Obama, the Obama campaign along with the remnants of the New Party and Democratic Socialists of America claimed that Obama was never a member of either organization. The DSA and 'New Party' then systematically attempted to cover up any ties between Obama and the Socialist Organizations. However, it now appears that Barack Obama was indeed a certified and acknowledged member of the DSA's New Party.

 

On Tuesday, I discovered a web page that had been scrubbed from the New Party's website. The web page which was published in October 1996, was an internet newsletter update on that years congressional races. Although the web page was deleted from the New Party's website, the non-profit Internet Archive Organization had archived the page.

  From the October 1996 Update of the DSA 'New Party':
"New Party members are busy knocking on doors, hammering down lawn signs, and phoning voters to support NP candidates this fall. Here are some of our key races...

 

Illinois: Three NP-members won Democratic primaries last Spring and face off against Republican opponents on election day: Danny Davis (U.S. House), Barack Obama (State Senate) and Patricia Martin (Cook County Judiciary)."

 

You can find the above quote from the scubbed New Party web page at this Internet Archive Organization link. More confirmation of Obama's membership in the New Party can be found at an article in the November 1996 Progressive Populist magazine: New Party members and supported candidates won 16 of 23 races, including an at-large race for the Little Rock, Ark., City Council, a seat on the county board for Little Rock and the school board for Prince George's County, Md. Chicago is sending the first New Party member to Congress, as Danny Davis, who ran as a Democrat, won an overwhelming 85% victory. New Party member Barack Obama was uncontested for a State Senate seat from Chicago. 

 

The Democratic Socialist Party of America also reported on Obama's New Party membership in its July/August 1996 edition:

The Chicago New Party is increasely becoming a viable political organization that can make a different in Chicago politics. It is crucial for a political organization to have a solid infrastructure and visible results in its political program. The New Party has continued to solidify this base.

First, in relation to its infrastructure, the NP's membership has increased since January '95 from 225 to 440. National membership has increased from 5700 in December '95 to 7000. Currently the NP's fiscal balance is $7,000 and receives an average of $450/month is sustainer donations.

Secondly, the NP's '96 Political Program has been enormously successful with 3 of 4 endorsed candidates winning electoral primaries. All four candidates attended the NP membership meeting on April 11th to express their gratitude. Danny Davis, winner in the 7th Congressional District, invited NPers to join his Campaign Steering Committee. Patricia Martin, who won the race for Judge in 7th Subcircuit Court, explained that due to the NP she was able to network and get experienced advice from progressives like Davis. Barack Obama, victor in the 13th State Senate District, encouraged NPers to join in his task forces on Voter Education and Voter Registration. The lone loser was Willie Delgado, in the 3rd Illinois House District. Although Delgado received 45% of the vote, he lost by only 800 votes. Delgado commented that it was due to the NP volunteers that he carried the 32nd Ward. Delgado emphasized that he will remain a visible community activist in Humbolt Park. He will conduct four Immigration workshops and encouraged NP activists to get involved.

 

Kudos to Politically Drunk On Power for digging up this information about Obama's membership in the socialist New Party. The question now is if the MSM will deem his party membership important enough to report on. They sure didn't hesitate to report on Todd Palin's membership in the Alaska Independence Party. 

UPDATE: Yet more proof of Obama's close involvement in the socialist New Party from NewsBusters' Hermano who provided this link to the Chicago Democratic Socialists of American September-October 1995 New Ground 42 edition:

About 50 activists attended the Chicago New Party membership meeting in July. The purpose of the meeting was to update members on local activities and to hear appeals for NP support from four potential political candidates. The NP is being very active in organization building and politics. There are 300 members in Chicago. In order to build an organizational and financial base the NP is sponsoring house parties. Locally it has been successful both fiscally and in building a grassroots base. Nationwide it has resulted in 1000 people committed to monthly contributions. The NP's political strategy is to support progressive candidates in elections only if they have a concrete chance to "win". This has resulted in a winning ratio of 77 of 110 elections. Candidates must be approved via a NP political committee. Once approved, candidates must sign a contract with the NP. The contract mandates that they must have a visible and active relationship with the NP.

The political entourage included Alderman Michael Chandler, William Delgado, chief of staff for State Rep Miguel del Valle, and spokespersons for State Sen. Alice Palmer, Sonya Sanchez, chief of staff for State Sen. Jesse Garcia, who is running for State Rep in Garcia's District; and Barack Obama, chief of staff for State Sen. Alice Palmer. Obama is running for Palmer's vacant seat.

 

I think before i am done we will all know wht kind of people OOOObomba pals with and starts his political career with! And you blind leftist and even FOX2 are sticking your heads up your @#!$!

ELECTION 2008
'Bill Ayers forced me to have sex' with roommate
Woman speaking out to counter reports excusing behavior of ex-domestic terrorist

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Posted: October 08, 2008
11:40 pm Eastern

By Aaron Klein
© 2008 WorldNetDaily

 

JERUSALEM – Speaking out as William Ayers becomes an increasingly controversial figure in the presidential campaign, a woman charges the former Weather Underground radical locked her in his attic apartment when both were college students and intimidated her into having sex with his brother and his black roommate.

The woman, Donna Ron, told WND Ayers declared to her during the 1965 incident at the University of Michigan that if she didn't sleep with his roommate, it would mean she was a bigot and a racist.

"I was terrified. People underestimate terrorism by psychological intimidation. I felt like I was being held prisoner," recalled Ron, an American who now resides in Israel.

Ron told WND the alleged incident occurred during her freshmen year at the university, where she became attracted to anti-war activism. She had been friends with Ayers for about two months. Ayers later earned a bachelor's degree from Michigan.

Ron says she supports Sen. Barack Obama and hopes her charges don't affect his bid for the White House. She's involved in a socialist kibbutz movement in Israel.

Ayers did not return a WND request for comment.

Ayers helped form an education organization chaired by Obama, and the two later served on a non-profit board and appeared together at various speaking events. Obama launched his political career with a fundraiser at Ayers' home in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood, where Obama also lives.

Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin has brought up Ayers on the campaign trail this week, charging Obama had been "palling around with terrorists who would target their own country."

Ayers, now a professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago, has admitted to involvement in the bombings of U.S. governmental buildings in the 1970s, including the U.S. Capitol in 1971. He told the New York Times in an interview released Sept. 11, 2001, "I don't regret setting bombs."

'Young ideologues on the make'

Ron previously recounted the alleged incident in a column published in 2006 by FrontPageMag.com:

It was at the Undergraduate Library at the University of Michigan on a Friday night in November 1965. ... Billy Ayers was standing on the first floor and started talking to me.

I thought he was cute. There seemed to be jovial kind of instant connection between us. … Despite the caution I'd learned about young ideologues on the make, I was charmed by Bill Ayers and by his savvy talk of politics and the children's school he was involved with.

He asked me to go to a party with him and I did. I have a vague memory of the house where the party was and the people there. I think he got quite drunk and I suppose I drank too. I remember walking home with him. He was very open about himself and told me he was one of five children and that he was from Chicago and that his father was rich.

I felt comfortable with Bill. Throughout my life I had always had a friendly buddy-kind of connection with certain boys and felt that I was developing such a connection with him.

I remember going back to his attic apartment – he describes it in his book "Fugitive Days." He had a roommate – a black man who was 23 and married with children. There was a couch, a table, a stereo and a sink in the room. There were two beds – Ayers' and his roommate's on each side of the attic wall. I slept with him there.

I came there a few times to talk and to listen to his LPs. I especially loved Glen Yarbrough's album "Come Share My Life." I met Bill's roommate who also worked at the children's school. I also met Bill's younger brother Rick. Bill was a year older than I and his brother was a year younger. He spent a lot of time at Bill's apartment.

What I do recall is that when I was getting ready to leave Ayers told me I couldn't go until I slept with his roommate and his brother. At this point Bill and I had slept together just once. I was sexually inexperienced, having had only one serious boyfriend with whom I had recently broken up.

At first I thought Ayers was joking. I got up; and went to the door. He moved quickly to block me at the doorway. He locked the door and put the chain on it. I went to the couch and sat down and told him that I had no intention of having sex with his roommate and his brother or him.

He said that I had no choice but to do as he said if I wanted to get out of there. He claimed that I wouldn't sleep with his married roommate because he was black – that I was a bigot. I had gone to school with black kids and had them as friends all my life. I couldn't believe he was saying that to me.

I felt trapped. I had to get out of the situation I was in and because he was so effective a guilt-tripper, I also felt I had to prove to him that I wasn't a bigot. I got up from the couch and walked over to the black roommate's bed and put myself on it and he f-----d me.

Ron wrote that while having sex with Ayers' roommate she "went totally out of my body," a description commonly used by rape victims.

"I floated beside myself on the outside and above the bed looking at this black stranger f--- me angrily while I hated myself," she wrote.

"After that I had to go lie down on Bill Ayer's bed for his brother to screw me. Rick Ayers was a decent person, unlike his brother, and couldn't go through with it. He started and stopped and let me go. I also thought I had to let Bill screw me but at that point he unbolted the door and I left."

'There was no way out'

Ron said she did not immediately report the incident, because she was in shock, and because in the 1960s the term date rape did not exist.

She said she felt like she was "psychologically raped" by Ayers.

"I felt like I was being held prisoner," she told WND. "I remember sitting on the couch and he kept badgering me and stood over me. At the time, it was clear for me there was no way out if I didn't do what he wanted me to do."

She told WND her experience caused her enormous trauma and psychological suffering and that she has undergone years of therapy.

"One of my friends recently pointed out to me how the experience actually colored my life and caused me to do all sorts of things," she said.

"What had happened affected my ability to trust in a relationship with a man, and I didn't have a close relationship again for a long time," said Ron.

Ron said she eventually moved to Israel, where she is now involved in non-profit resource and program development, and was not aware Ayers had reestablished himself as a respected teacher and leader in education in Chicago until he published his memoir, "Fugitive Days," in 2001.

She said she was compelled to speak out this week only after reading multiple media reports she said attempted to excuse Ayers' behavior during his Weathermen years.

"How could people accept him back into society as if he did nothing wrong? He may still be having a detrimental influence on people. I have many concerns about speaking out, but I think people need to know who Bill Ayers really is," she told WND.

'I feel we didn't do enough'

Ayers, as WND has reported, was a key member of the Weathermen, a band of revolutionaries who declared war on the U.S. government and the free enterprise system during the 1970s, and has written about his involvement in bombing the New York City police headquarters in 1970, the Capitol in 1971 and the Pentagon in 1972.

He told the New York Times in an interview released Sept. 11, 2001, "I don't regret setting bombs. I feel we didn't do enough." He posed for a photograph accompanying the piece that shows him stepping on an American flag.

Ayers last month wrote on his blog he still feels not enough was done to oppose the Vietnam War, although he clarified, "I don't think violent resistance is necessarily the answer, but I do think opposition and refusal is imperative."

Ayers' wife, Bernadine Dohrn, also has served on panels with Obama. Dohrn was once on the FBI's Top 10 Most Wanted List and was described by J. Edgar Hoover as the "most dangerous woman in America." Ayers and Dohrn raised the son of Weathermen terrorist Kathy Boudin, who was serving a sentence for participating in a 1981 murder and robbery that left four people dead.

The charges against Ayers and Dohrn were dropped in 1974 because, as the New York Times reported, "it was ruled the government's case was based on illegal wiretaps."

Longshot
Oct 8, 2008 | 11:19 PM

NO COLT I DON'T.

10 years ago I paid for OUT OF POCKET for my BC/BS policy ( job didn't offer it ) $279.00 every two months ( BTW I had this insurance since I was 25 ). It had a $250.00 deductible, and paid 100% in hospitalization coverage. Today I cannot afford a $550.00 a Month policy with a $1,500.00 deductible and only pays for 70% in hospitalization coverage.

I HAVE NEVER STATED EVER, THAT I WANTED FREE HEALTH CARE FROM ANY GOVERNMENT.

I along with millions just want to be able to get an affordable policy again that actually pays for something.

GET YOUR F'N FACTS STRAIGHT. MY MIND IS MY OWN.

YOU ARE 100% FULL OF S**T.


Now I updated Profile.

DIVERSIONS FROM THE BLOG WRITTEN ARE AUTOMATICALLY DELETED. DON'T LIKE IT, TOUGH! NOBODY ASKED YOU TO COMMENT.


YOU SHOULD ALREADY BE GONE. BLEEP did your response have to do with what I posted on?


THAT IS WHY MOST OF YOU GET DELETED. CONSTANT DIVERSION OF WHAT'S WRITTEN. AND WHY?


YOU ARE TERRIFIED OF TRUTH.

MY LORD, SOMEONE POSTED A FACT, LET'S DIVERT OFF OF IT.


F' OFF ALREADY. YOU DON'T SEE ME ON YOUR BLOG.
I DON'T GIVE A F' WHAT YOUR OPINIONS ARE. OBVIOUSLY YOU AND YOUR FRIENDS GIVE A DAMN ABOUT MINE, OTHERWISE YOU WOULDN'T KEEP SHOWING UP HERE.

Why Won’t Obama Talk About Columbia?
The years he won’t discuss may explain the Ayers tie he keeps lying about.

By Andrew C. McCarthy

Barack Obama does not want to talk about Columbia. Not even to his good friends at the New York Times, who’ve so reliably helped him bleach away his past — a past neck-deep in the hard Left radicalism he has gussied up but never abandoned.

Why? I suspect it is because Columbia would shred his thin post-partisan camouflage.

You might think the Times would be more curious. After all, the Democrats’ presidential nominee has already lied to the Gray Lady about the origins of his relationship with Weather Underground terrorists Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn. Back in May, in a cheery profile of Obama’s early Chicago days, the Times claimed (emphasis is mine):

 

Mr. Obama also fit in at Hyde Park’s fringes, among university faculty members like Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn, unrepentant members of the radical Weather Underground that bombed the United States Capitol and the Pentagon to protest the Vietnam War. Mr. Obama was introduced to the couple in 1995 at a meet-and-greet they held for him at their home, aides said.

Now look, anyone who gave five seconds of thought to that passage smelled a rat. Ayers and Dohrn are passionate radical activists who lived as fugitives for a decade. There’s no way they held a political coming-out party for someone who was unknown to them. Obviously, they already knew him well enough by then to feel very comfortable. They might have been sympathetic to a relative stranger, but sponsoring such a gathering in one’s living room is a strong endorsement.

And now, even the Times now knows it’s been had. In this past weekend’s transparent whitewashing of the Obama/Ayers tie, the paper claimed that the pair first met earlier in 1995, “at a lunchtime meeting about school reform in a Chicago skyscraper[.]” That storyline is preposterous too, but it is also a marked revision of the paper’s prior account (which, naturally, reporter Scott Shane fails to mention).

Why the change? The tacit concession was forced by Stanley Kurtz and Steve Diamond — whom the Times chooses not to acknowledge but who hover over Shane’s sunny narrative like a dark cloud.

Despite all manner of stonewalling by Obama, Ayers and their allies, these commentators have doggedly pursued information about the Chicago Annenberg Challenge. That’s the $150+ million “education reform” piggy bank substantially controlled in the nineties by Ayers and Obama, who doled out tens of millions of dollars to Leftist radicals — radicals who, like their patrons, understood that control over our institutions, and especially our schools, was a surer and less risky way to spread their revolution than blowing up buildings and mass-murdering American soldiers. As Diamond observes, in a 2006 speech in Venezuela, with Leftist strongman Hugo Chavez looking on, Ayers exhorted: “Teaching invites transformations, it urges revolutions small and large. La educacion es revolucion!”

Be clear on that much: Whether clothed as a terrorist or an academic, Ayers has made abundantly clear in his public statements, both before and after he established a working relationship and mutual admiration society with Obama, that he remains a revolutionary fueled by hatred of the United States. And while Obama now ludicrously pleads ignorance about Ayers’s terrorism — the terrorism that made the unabashed Ayers an icon of the Left — understand that this rabid anti-Americanism is the common denominator running through Obama’s orbit of influences.

Yes, Ayers is blunter than Obama. As he so delicately told the Times, America makes him “want to puke.” The smoother Obama is content to say our society needs fundamental “change.” But what they’re talking about is not materially different.

Such sentiments should make Obama unelectable. So, when it comes to his own radical moorings, Obama is engaged in classic liar behavior. He changes his story as the facts change — and the burden is always on you to dig up the facts, not on him to come clean. Yesterday, asked to comment on the Ayers relationship, David Axelrod, Obama’s top political adviser, hilariously chirped, “There’s no evidence that they’re close.” Translation: Get back to us when you can prove more damaging information — until then, we don’t need to further refine our perjury.

And then Axelrod gave us still more lies: “There’s no evidence that Obama in any way subscribed to any of Ayers’ views.”

Oh yeah? Well, Mr. Axelrod, how do you explain Obama’s breathless endorsement of Ayers’s 1997 Leftist polemic on the criminal-justice system, A Kind and Just Parent? As Stanley Kurtz has recounted, Ayers’s book is a radical indictment of American society: We, not the criminals, are responsible for the violent crime that plagues our cities; even the most vicious juvenile offenders should not be tried as adults; prisons should eventually be replaced by home detention; American justice is comparable to South Africa under Apartheid. Obama’s reaction? He described the book as “a searing and timely account” — a take even the Times concedes was a “rave review.”

Obama and Ayers shared all kinds of views. That is why they worked so well together at the Chicago Annenberg Challenge (CAC), funding the likes of Mike Klonsky, a fellow SDS and Maoist associate of Ayers who, as Steve Diamond relates, used to host a “social justice” blog on Obama’s campaign website. With Obama heading the board of directors that approved expenditures and Ayers, the mastermind running its operational arm, hundreds of thousands of CAC dollars poured into the “Small Schools Workshop” — a project begun by Ayers and run by Klonsky to spur the revolution from the ground up.

Precisely because they shared the same views, Obama and Ayers also worked comfortably together on the board of the Woods Fund. There, they doled out thousands of dollars to Jeremiah Wright’s Trinity Church to promote its Marxist “black liberation theology.” Moreover, they underwrote the Arab American Action Network (AAAN) founded by Rashid Khalidi, a top apologist for Yasser Arafat. As National Review’s David Pryce-Jones notes, Khalidi once directed WAFA, the terrorist PLO’s news agency. Then, like Ayers, he repackaged himself as an academic who rails at American policy. The AAAN, which supports driver’s licenses and public welfare benefits for illegal aliens, holds that the establishment of Israel was an illegitimate “catastrophe.”

Khalidi, who regards Israel as a “racist” “apartheid” state, supports Palestinian terror strikes against Israeli military targets. It’s little surprise that he should be such a favorite of Ayers, the terrorist for whom “racism” and “apartheid” trip off the tongue as easily as “pass the salt.”

And it’s no surprise that the like-minded Obama would be a fan. Khalidi, after all, has mastered the Arafat art of posing as a moderate before credulous Westerners while (as Martin Kramer documents) scalding America’s “Zionist lobby” when addressing Arabic audiences. The Obama who decries “bitter” Americans “cling[ing] to guns or religion” when he’s in San Francisco but morphs into a God-fearing Second Amendment enthusiast when he’s in Pennsylvania — like the Obama who pummels NAFTA before labor union supporters but has advisers quietly assure the Canadians not to worry about such campaign cant — surely appreciates the craft.

Obama and Ayers not only demonstrated their shared view of Khalidi by funding him. They also gave glowing testimonials at a farewell dinner when Khalidi left the University of Chicago for Columbia’s greener pastures. That would be the same Columbia from which Obama graduated in 1983.

Khalidi was leaving to become director of Columbia’s Middle East Institute, assuming a professorship endowed in honor of another Arafat devotee, the late Edward Said. A hero of the Left who consulted with terrorist leaders (including Hezbollah’s Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah) and was once photographed hurling rocks at Israelis from the Lebanese border, Said was exposed by researcher Justus Reid Weiner as a fraud who had created a fictional account of his childhood, the rock on which he built his Palestinian grievance mythology.

We know precious little about Obama’s Columbia years, but the Los Angeles Times has reported that he studied under Said. In and of itself, that is meaningless: Said was a hotshot prof and hundreds of students took his comparative-lit courses. But Obama plainly maintained some sort of tie with Said — a photo making the Internet rounds shows Obama conversing with the great man himself at a 1998 Arab American community dinner in Chicago, where the Obamas and Saids were seated together.

Said had a wide circle of radical acquaintances. That circle clearly included Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn. When they came out of hiding in the early 1980s (while Obama was attending Columbia), Ayers took education courses at Bank Street College, adjacent to Columbia in Morningside Heights — before earning his doctorate at Columbia’s Teachers College in 1987.

Said was so enamored of Ayers that he commended the unrepentant terrorist’s 2001 memoir, Fugitive Days — the book in which the haughty Ayers brags about his Weatherman past — with this glowing dust-jacket blurb:

What makes Fugitive Days unique is its unsparing detail and its marvelous human coherence and integrity. Bill Ayers's America and his family background, his education, his political awakening, his anger and involvement, his anguished re-emergence from the shadows: all these are rendered in their truth without a trace of nostalgia or “second thinking.” For anyone who cares about the sorry mess we are in, this book is essential, indeed necessary, reading.

Sorry mess, indeed. For his part, Ayers is at least equally enthralled by Said, of whom, even in death, Ayers says “[t]here is no one better positioned … to offer advice on the conduct of intellectual life[,]” than the man who was “over the last thirty-five years, the most passionate, eloquent, and clear-eyed advocate for the rights of the Palestinian people.”

After they left Columbia, both Obama and Ayers went to Chicago: Obama to become a “community organizer” (the director of the Developing Communities Project, an offshoot of the Gamaliel Foundation dedicated to Saul Alinsky’s principles for radicalizing society); Ayers, two years later, to teach at the University of Illinois. Diamond details how they both became embroiled in a major education controversy that resulted in 1988 reform legislation.

Ayers’s father, Tom Ayers, a prominent Chicago businessman, was also deeply involved in the reform effort. Interestingly, in 1988, while Obama and Ayers toiled on the same education agenda, Bernadine Dohrn worked as an intern at the prestigious Chicago law firm of Sidley Austin — even though she could not be admitted to the bar due to her contempt conviction for refusing to cooperate in a terrorist investigation. How could that happen? It turns out that Sidley was the longtime outside counsel for Tom Ayers’s company, Commonwealth Edison. That is, Ayers’ father had pull at the firm and successfully pressed for the hiring of his daughter-in-law.

The next summer, though he had gone off to Harvard Law School (another impressive accomplishment he prefers not to discuss), Obama returned to the Windy City to work as an intern at Sidley. Dohrn was gone by then to teach at Northwestern. A coincidence? Maybe (Diamond doesn’t think so), but that’s an awful lot of coincidences — and a long trail of common people, places and experiences — for people who purportedly didn’t know each other yet managed to end up as partners in significant financial and political ventures.

In short, Bill Ayers and Barack Obama moved in the same circles, were driven by the same cause, and admired the same radicals all the way from Morningside Heights to Hyde Park. They ended up publicly admiring each other, promoting each other’s work, sitting on the same boards, and funding the same Leftist agitators.

You could conclude, as I do, that it all goes back to a formative time in his life that Obama refuses to discuss. Or you could buy the fairy tale that Bill Ayers first encountered an unknown, inexperienced, third-year associate from a small Chicago law-firm over coffee in 1995 and suddenly decided Barack Obama was the perfect fit to oversee the $150 million pot of gold Ayers hoped would underwrite his revolution

object width="425" height="344"> look and learn

see the video from cnn

BOE Questions Suspicious Voter Registration Cards Last Edited: Tuesday, 07 Oct 2008, 7:59 PM EDT Created: Tuesday, 07 Oct 2008, 7:59 PM EDT --- or just enabling jstl so that we can just write ${bean.property} and jsp takes care of the new lines. -->
Cuyahoga County Election Board members grilled representatives of a community group Tuesday about their links to suspicious voter registration cards.

In one case, a Cleveland resident was registered to vote three times in a single day, listing two different addresses.  

The man's registration was submitted to the Board of Elections by ACORN.  

The board discussed several other cases of multiple registrations at their meeting.  ACORN was involved in each case, although not for all entries by the same individuals.
   
"Problems do occur and we are concerned as you are, perhaps in some cases more concerned because our name is on that," says Teresa James, an attorney volunteering with ACORN. 

While admitting they don't have the resources to track all multiple entries, they submit all registrations to the Board and attach a warning about cards that raise suspicions. 

Leaders of the group say their role is to help low and moderate income residents participate in the democratic process and it's up to the board to weed out problematic registrations. 

"ACORN is very proud of the work we do registering low income people to vote.  Nearly 100-thousand cards, and we're talking about less than 100 people and we're working to resolve issues on that small number of people," said Kristopher Harsh an organizer with the group.
   
Board Member Robert Frost said the group failed to follow guidelines in its own manual to turn over suspected voter fraud to law enforcement to investigate.
Election officials subpoenaed three voters to appear before the Board next week to explain their mulitple registrations. 

The list includes a Cuyahoga County resident whose name appears on 22 registration cards submitted in six months.

First it was Clinton and Al Gore selling out this nation for cash in 96 now its obama and the ones that want  cut the neck of the infidel

Illegal Obama donors: Middle Eastern Arabs
Gazan brothers' illicit contributions listed in government campaign filings

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Posted: August 04, 2008
11:17 am Eastern

By Aaron Klein
© 2008 WorldNetDaily

 

JERUSALEM – Palestinian brothers inside the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip are listed in government election filings as having donated $29,521.54 to Sen. Barack Obama's campaign.

Donations of this nature would violate election laws, including prohibitions on receiving contributions from foreigners and guidelines against accepting more than $2,300 from one individual during a single election, Bob Biersack, a spokesman for the Federal Election Commission, told WND in response to a query.

The contributions also raise numerous questions about the Obama campaign's lax online donation form, which apparently allows for the possibility of foreign contributions.

Last week, the Atlas Shrugs blog outlined a series of donations in 2007 made to Obama's campaign from two individuals, Monir Edwan and Hosam Edwan, totaling $29,521.54.

In an online form on Obama's campaign site, the Edwans listed their street as "Tal Esaltan," which they wrote was located in "Rafah, GA."

Rafah is not a city in Georgia. The Atlas blog immediately raised concerns that the money may have been donated from the Gaza Strip town of Rafah.

The Edwans' donations are listed in both FEC filings and other election filing sites, such as CampaignMoney and donordata.org.

Monir made 20 donations ranging from $717 to $2017.50 from October through November 2007. His donations totaled $24321.41. Hosam made seven donations ranging from $508.63 to $1725.96, totaling $5,200.13, all in October 2007.

A WND investigation tracked down the Edwans, who are brothers living in the Tal Esaltan neighborhood of Rafah, a large refugee camp in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip.

The Edwans are a large clan that include top Hamas supporters.

Speaking to WND, the two brothers praised Obama and admitted giving the money online to his campaign. They said they are not U.S. citizens or green card holders but are citizens of "Palestine."

The Edwans denied they are affiliated with Hamas. Palestinian sources in Gaza confirmed the Edwans in question are secular, but could not say whether they supported Hamas.

Monir and Hasam Edwan denied their financial transactions online – listed as donations in U.S. government election filings – were actual donations to Obama's campaign. Instead they claimed they purchased about $30,000 in Obama T-shirts from the presidential candidate's online store – a contention that did not hold up during a WND interview, when they changed their story several times.

"My brother Hosam and I knew that Obama will be a big hit even before he became a candidate. We knew the guy would be a celebrity in Gaza so we decided to invest the amount of $29,000 to buy Obama T-shirts from his website and sell them in Gaza," Monir Edwan told WND, speaking by cell phone from Gaza.

"I know on the back of this story Obama rivals will present our business as a donation and they will try to use this story to let Obama fall, but I'm telling you, we bought T-shirts," Edwan maintained.

Edwan said any profit made from purportedly selling the Obama T-shirts was not returned to the Obama campaign.

"We have nothing to do with the Obama campaign. We just like Obama and believe he will be the best for the Palestinians and for the world."

At first Monir Edwan claimed he sold the T-shirts in Gaza for around $9 and that a profit was made.

"Some young men even bought the T-shirts for 60 shekel ($17.29), which is a lot to spend in Gaza on a T-shirt, but that is how much Gazans like Obama," Edwan claimed.

But it was pointed out to Edwan the T-shirts for sale on Obama's website are listed as $20.08 and that selling the merchandise for less would not yield a profit.

"Maybe we sold the shirts for a lot more. I can't remember now," said Edwan.

Asked why he would purchase T-shirts at such a high rate and pay the cost of shipping when he could pay a company to produce T-shirts for less, Edwan replied, "We wanted the shirts to come from the campaign."

But Edwan could not explain how he managed to get shipments of T-shirts into the Gaza Strip during the months he claimed to have purchased the merchandise, since Israel imposed a tight closure of the Gaza Strip starting in June 2007 that lasted until June 2008, when the Israeli government agreed to a cease-fire with Hamas in Gaza.

"We don't want to cause any damage to Obama's campaign," was Edwan's reply.

Edwan said he wants Obama to be president.

"Not just the people in Gaza but people from all over the world are rooting for this great man," he told WND.

FEC spokesman Biersack told WND contributions from overseas are allowed if the donations are coming from U.S. citizens or green card carriers. But he said accepting money from foreigners would violate election provisions.

He said there are strict guidelines against accepting more than $2,300 from one individual during a single election.

"I am not familiar with the particulars of the case, so I am commenting in general. The FEC will have to examine all the circumstances before determining any wrongdoing," Biersack clarified.

Obama's campaign did not return WND phone calls or e-mail queries.

That the Edwans were able to contribute any money to Obama's campaign from Gaza opens questions into the methods used by the presidential candidate's website to accept online donations.

The website donation form asks each donor to affirm he or she is a U.S. citizen and is above the age of 16 but doesn't require donors to prove their citizenship status, such as providing a social security number. The form further requires the donor to affirm the contribution is not coming from a corporation, political action committee or lobby group.

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Educators line up to defend domestic terrorist Ayers
Hundreds endorse letter opposing 'demonization' of former bomber linked to Obama

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Posted: October 07, 2008
2:59 pm Eastern

By Drew Zahn
© 2008 WorldNetDaily

 

Bill Ayers

Hundreds of educators have endorsed a letter opposing the "demonization" of Williams Ayers – the domestic terrorist who helped launch Barack Obama's poliltical career, and whose relationship with the Democratic presidential candidate continues to be major controversy – arguing that frequent reports of his involvement in domestic bombings are "designed to intimidate free thinking and stifle critical dialogue."

"We write to support our colleague Professor William Ayers, Distinguished Professor of Education and Senior University Scholar at the University of Illinois at Chicago, who is currently under determined and sustained political attack," reads the letter, available for endorsement at www.supportbillayers.org.

"The current characterizations of Professor Ayers – 'unrepentant terrorist,' 'lunatic leftist' – are unrecognizable to those who know or work with him," the letter continues.

Ayers, as WND has reported, was a key member of the radical Weathermen group – a band of revolutionaries who declared war on the U.S. government and the free enterprise system – during the 1970s and has written about his involvement in bombing the New York City police headquarters in 1970, the Capitol in 1971 and the Pentagon in 1972.

"Everything was absolutely ideal on the day I bombed the Pentagon," Ayers wrote in his memoir, "Fugitive Days," released the day before the Pentagon was struck again in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. "The sky was blue. The birds were singing. And the bastards were finally going to get what was coming to them."

The New York Times reported that Ayers later clarified, saying he didn't actually set the bomb, but was visualizing it to dramatize his participation in organizing the attack.

In a Times interview published Sept. 11, 2001, Ayers said, "I don't regret setting bombs. I feel we didn't do enough." He posed for a photograph accompanying the piece that shows him stepping on an American flag.

The Times also reported that when asked if he would rule out planting another bomb someday, Ayers responded, ''I can't imagine entirely dismissing the possibility.''

Nevertheless, more than 600 educators have endorsed the letter, which dismisses Ayers' terrorist past, fails to mention his more recent statements and asserts, "What is most relevant now is his continued engagement in progressive causes, and his exemplary contribution – including publishing 16 books – to the field of education."

Marvin Hoffman of the University of Chicago is one of letter's endorsers. He told WND he has worked with Ayers for years and the bombings happened "in a time period difficult for any of us to reconstruct, a time of great anger during the Vietnam War when the government was unresponsive to the people."

Ayers should be judged, Hoffman said, by his contributions to the community and to education in the present, not his activities in the past.

The educators' letter also contends that teachers have a moral obligation to promote the free flow of ideas and that public criticism of Ayers serves as a warning that "anyone who voices perspectives and advances questions that challenge orthodoxy and political power may become a target."

Reports that characterize Ayers as a leftist or a terrorist, the letter claims, represent a "crusade" to "crush" the "inevitable clash of ideas" that follows when challenges to the status quo present "the possibility of change."

"All citizens, but particularly teachers and scholars, are called upon to challenge orthodoxy, dogma and mindless complacency, to be skeptical of authoritative claims, to interrogate and trouble the given and the taken-for-granted," the letter states. "Without critical dialogue and dissent we would likely be burning witches and enslaving our fellow human beings to this day."

The letter concludes: "We, the undersigned, stand on the side of education as an enterprise devoted to human inquiry, enlightenment and liberation. We oppose the demonization of Professor William Ayers."

Though WND could not confirm the validity of every name on the list, several of those recorded as endorsing the letter match educators, such as Hoffman, serving in universities across the country.

Another name listed as endorsing the letter is Mike Klonsky, who, as WND reported, was a former student activist with Ayers in the 1960s and who runs an education organization founded by Ayers that received a substantial grant from a group directed by Sen. Barack Obama.

Ayers' past activities have come under increased national scrutiny lately as his connections to Obama have been highlighted in the press. Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin, referencing Ayers, said on the campaign trail this week Obama had been "palling around with terrorists who would target their own country."