Free Republic

Election '08: Obama says McCain won't raise the Ayers issue to his face. Well, there's one more debate, senator, and maybe you'd like John Murtaugh to ask the question: What did you know and when did you know it?It's almost certain that in the questions not selected by Tom Brokaw for the second presidential debate, there was at least one about William Ayers, whom Brokaw describes as a "school reformer" and not the Weather Underground leader who still doesn't regret bombing government buildings. The question was never asked and McCain never mentioned his name, even though the last question of...

If you thought the New Left was dead in America, think again. Walk through just about any of the nation’s inner cities, and you’re likely to find an office of ACORN, bustling with young people working 12-hour days to “organize the poor” and bring about “social change.” The largest radical group in the country, ACORN has 120,000 dues-paying members, chapters in 700 poor neighborhoods in 50 cities, and 30 years’ experience. It boasts two radio stations, a housing corporation, a law office, and affiliate relationships with a host of trade-union locals. Not only big, it is effective, with some remarkable...

The Maryland State Police classified 53 nonviolent activists as terrorists and entered their names and personal information into state and federal databases that track terrorism suspects, the state police chief acknowledged yesterday. Police Superintendent Terrence B. Sheridan revealed at a legislative hearing that the surveillance operation, which targeted opponents of the death penalty and the Iraq war, was far more extensive than was known when its existence was disclosed in July. The department started sending letters of notification Saturday to the activists, inviting them to review their files before they are purged from the databases, Sheridan said. "The names don't...

The Metropolitan Airports Commission has told a judge that six Muslim imams who sued after being kicked off a flight almost two years ago shouldn't be allowed to add an FBI agent as a defendant in the case. Lawyers for the imams claimed last week that they should be allowed to amend their suit because the FBI agent's involvement in the incident was "new evidence," but lawyers for the airports commission said that wasn't the case. "The FBI's specific role was disclosed in the police report and in court filings, well before the deadline to amend passed," the commission argued...

While Barack Obama’s friends and supporters in the news media downplay his friendship and business relationship with former terrorist and Marxist university professor Willam Ayers, one aspect of the Ayers terrorism saga that’s totally ignored is his reputation as a cop-killer. For instance, in Nyack, New York, Ayers’ terrorist group the Weather Underground launched an armored-car robbery that left two Nyack, NY police officers—Officer Waverly Brown and Sergeant Ed O’Grady—mortally wounded. In addition, the Brinks armored-car driver, Peter Paige was also shot to death by the Weathermen. Quite simply, Ayers’ group of killers left five children without fathers as a...

WASHINGTON (AFP) — Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin's attack on Democratic White House hopeful Barack Obama as someone who would "pal around with terrorists" has sparked rage and support as both campaigns sharpen their knives in the final push for the presidency. The issue dominated the Sunday morning talk shows just a month before the election and as Obama's camp has angrily derided McCain for saying it wanted to "turn the page" away from the economic crisis.

From an approved blogsite post of Obama's terrorist pal, Bill Ayers: "Poilu Says: September 30, 2008 at 2:11 am Well, well. It now emerges that ALL of the Bush Regime’s proclaimed 'justifications' for war have been nothing but bald-faced lies. (Why am I not surprised?) It’s long past time these loathesome [sic] war criminals were dragged kicking and screaming to the gallows, along with their quisling enablers! [ . . . ]"

A 24-year-old convert to Islam has been sentenced to 35 years in prison for plotting to blow off hand grenades in a crowded shopping mall during the Christmas season. Federal Judge David Coar said Tuesday he didn't believe Shareef was evil. But he said people could have been severely hurt if federal agents hadn't broken up the plot.

The father of John Walker Lindh, who has spent nearly seven years in federal prison for serving in an Afghan army, told a room full of law students at University of San Francisco on Wednesday his son has been used as a scapegoat for the faults of the U.S. government. Frank Lindh of Marin County spoke for the fourth consecutive year about how he believes U.S. troops in northern Afghanistan in 2001 illegitimately captured his son, known as an "American Taliban," for fighting as a Taliban soldier just after the Sept. 11 attacks. Frank Lindh said he believes his son...

Despite having authored two autobiographies, Barack Obama has never written about his most important executive experience. From 1995 to 1999, he led an education foundation called the Chicago Annenberg Challenge (CAC), and remained on the board until 2001. The group poured more than $100 million into the hands of community organizers and radical education activists. ... In works like "City Kids, City Teachers" and "Teaching the Personal and the Political," Mr. Ayers wrote that teachers should be community organizers dedicated to provoking resistance to American racism and oppression. His preferred alternative? "I'm a radical, Leftist, small 'c' communist," Mr. Ayers...

Mordecai Specktor says his 19-year-old son, Max, "has never been in a fight" and is "not a violent person." "He's an anarchist," said Specktor, the publisher and editor of Minnesota's Jewish newspaper, the American Jewish World. He's also "a University of Minnesota student, Jewishly educated." His son, he said, is "a wonderful guy." Max Specktor is also now branded a terrorist after his arrest earlier this month, along with seven others, on charges of planning to disrupt the Republican National Convention in St. Paul. He's been charged with conspiring to riot "in furtherance of terrorism" and could face up to...

Is this guy a Muslim? A jihadist? I have no idea, and I am not saying he is. But the possibility cannot be dismissed out of hand when he chants “Allah” and mutters in Arabic while attacking a man he does not know with a hammer. In a sane society, government, media, and law enforcement would be calling upon American Muslim groups to do something about this – to face up to the capacity of Islamic texts and teachings to incite violence, and to institute comprehensive, honest, inspectable programs teaching against jihad violence and Islamic supremacism. But this is hardly...

While the remains of the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York and Washington, DC's Pentagon are "ground zero" for the horrible destruction wrought by foreign terrorists, the nation's forests, research labs, resorts and housing developments have long been "ground zero" for domestic environmentally-driven "ecoterrorists." There may be diabolical links between the two forces. There is a strong possibility that Animal Liberation Front (ALF) terrorists have come into possession of Anthrax as the result of having invaded laboratories that have been researching the disease. This certainly merits investigation as a source for the Anthrax attacks. The fact ...

Eight members of the RNC Welcoming Committee, a self-described anarchist organization, each one faces four charges for their alleged plans to disrupt the convention. Each individual was charged Wednesday with second-degree furtherance of terrorism, conspiracy to riot, conspiracy to commit civil disorder and conspiracy to damage property. Those arrested were Robert Joseph Czernik, Monica Rachel Bicking, Erik Charles Oseland, Garrett Scott Fitzgerald, Nathanial David Secor, Max Jacob Speckton, Luce Guillen-Givens, and Eryn Trimmer. The eight were arrested after Ramsey County Sheriff’s deputies raided four homes in Minneapolis and St. Paul on Aug. 30 and 31. They are all being held...

A Flint man is facing federal charges related to an alleged plot to bomb the Republican National Convention in St. Paul, Minnesota. Matthew Bradley DePalma, 23, is accused of one count of possession of firearms that were not registered to him. Agents of the FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force arrested DePalma at a home in south Minneapolis. According to a Department of Justice news release, the FBI began its investigation in July when DePalma stated his intention to "make some bombs" and "blow up" things during the RNC. An FBI affidavit also states that DePalma intended to bomb the Xcel...

A 23-year-old Michigan man faces up to 10 years in jail for illegally possessing bombs, which he allegedly intended to use to destroy the Xcel Energy Center during the Republican National Convention. Matthew Bradley DePalma, of Flint, Mich., was charged Aug. 30 with one count of possession of firearms. According to his criminal complaint, DePalma had several Molotov cocktails in his possession a week before the start of the RNC. DePalma had been under investigation by federal investigators after he attended a protester conference in Wisconsin in July. Officials said DePalma went to the Hennepin County Library on Aug. 18...

Resume Of A Terrorist: Obama's Buddy Ayers by Jim Kouri Published: Sep 2, 2008 While the likes of the New York Times, Washington Post, ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN and other news organizations have their reporters digging for dirt on Alaskan Gov. Sarah Palin, John McCain's choice for vice president, their savior-in-waiting Barack Obama is getting a free ride at the expense of truth. It's no secret that the denizens of America's newsrooms want Obama sitting in the Oval Office, but Americans are being purposely duped by the Democrat National Committee's volunteer publicists, formerly known as the mainstream news media. If...

Ramsey County sheriff's deputies found weapons and devices to disable buses - among other items - in searches in the Twin Cities last night and today. Authorities said the items came from "key members of the RNC Welcoming Committee," a self-described anarchist group. Five people have been arrested and four properties have been searched, according to the sheriff's office. At 8 a.m. today, the sheriff's office executed search warrants at three Minneapolis homes - 2301 23rd Ave. S., 3500 Harriet Ave. and 3240 17th Ave. S. The FBI, Minneapolis police and the Hennepin County sheriff's office assisted them. "The 'Welcoming...

During the April 16 debate between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, moderator George Stephanopoulos brought up “a gentleman named William Ayers,” who “was part of the Weather Underground in the 1970s. They bombed the Pentagon, the Capitol, and other buildings. He’s never apologized for that.” Stephanopoulos then asked Obama to explain his relationship with Ayers. Obama’s answer: “The notion that somehow as a consequence of me knowing somebody who engaged in detestable acts 40 years ago, when I was eight years old, somehow reflects on me and my values, doesn’t make much sense, George.” Obama was indeed only eight in...

During the April 16 debate between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, moderator George Stephanopoulos brought up “a gentleman named William Ayers,” who “was part of the Weather Underground in the 1970s. They bombed the Pentagon, the Capitol, and other buildings. He’s never apologized for that.” Stephanopoulos then asked Obama to explain his relationship with Ayers. Obama’s answer: “The notion that somehow as a consequence of me knowing somebody who engaged in detestable acts 40 years ago, when I was eight years old, somehow reflects on me and my values, doesn’t make much sense, George.” Obama was indeed only eight in...

CHICAGO, Aug. 27 (UPI) -- Reporters reviewing records in Chicago have so far found nothing startling in documents linking Sen. Barack Obama to 1960s radical William Ayers. The man soon to become the Democratic presidential nominee served with Ayers on an education reform group, the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, during the 1990s. Files detailing activities of the panel were made available to the media Tuesday after being restricted by the Daley Library at the University of Illinois in Chicago. The UIC records show that Obama and Ayers attended board meetings, retreats and at least one news conference together as the program...

The Berkeley-based nonprofit Free History Project has sent a cease-and-desist letter to a right-wing political group which used footage from one of the project’s documentaries in a new ad that tries to tie Barack Obama to 1960s-era radical William Ayers. The letter demands that all broadcasts of the American Issues Project ad, now running in Michigan and Ohio, be halted as a violation of copyright law. San Francisco attorney John Keker wrote the ad’s producers have “willfully violated the Free History Project’s intellectual property rights,” and demanded that they “immediately remove the advertisement from any television, cable network, or other...

Video of Bill Ayers and the FBI discussing Ayers book Fugitive Days http://fora.tv/2006/01/26/Weather_Underground

MSNBC just showed a segment called "Swiftboating" Obama? They referred to it as an independent attack ad aired by AIP. Obama is trying to blocking the ad, they say. They showed a clip of Obama's response ad, but not the original ad. The lawyer John Decker was being questioned asked if Obama's response is really the best response, that most Americans don't like lawsuits. This isn't criminal, he basically said. He said they should respond with their own hardhitting ad, not file lawsuits. "'Terror attack ad' Vietnam War radical Bill Ayers was Responsible for Bombings " was displayed on the...

The Obama for President campaign has already begun complaining about our ad that connects Obama with domestic terrorist William Ayers. It seems they are intent to use the Federal Government to suppress political speech they disagree with. So they filed a complaint with the Department of Justice. Click here (PDF) to view the response from our attorney.

First on The Page: New Obama ad distances him from Bill Ayers and hits McCain back on the economy. ... Spot airing in Ohio and perhaps elsewhere starting Monday. Video coming soon...

An unrepentant terrorist heads a key division of a leading U.S. education research association that has immense influence over what our children's teachers study in education school. William Ayers, the unrepentant former SDS Weather Underground bomber of the 1960s, was recently elected by the American Education Research Association (AERA) as vice president and head of its division of curriculum studies. Apparently, AERA members have no qualms about selecting Ayers, a man who to this day remains dedicated to destroying America, to lead one of their organization's most important divisions. Perhaps they think Ayers is merely a "professor of English," as...

A predator drone being built by an engineer on Long Island sparked a large counter-terrorism investigation across the New York area, officials tell WNBC.com. Police said they had stumbled upon overnight testing of the drone at a little-used airstrip in Calverton, Long Island. The investigation began in February of last year, when investigators first learned testing of the drone was underway. Officials said the drone was being designed to carry more than 600 pounds of explosives. "It could be in the air for 8-10 hours and there's potential harm if it is carrying a large amount of toxic material," NYPD...

CENTRALIA, Wash. - An explosive device with the potential to deliver "an incredible amount of destructive power" was found alongside tracks leading to Lewis County's Trans Alta mine on Wednesday, officials said. The Lewis County Sheriff's Office said the device was found by a Trans Alta employee who did not recognize it as a bomb and transported it in a rail truck to turn over to the supervisor. The device was a five-gallon propane tank with green and yellow wires coming out the tank. The wires were similar to those used in electrical blasting caps. After arriving at the scene,...

Sen. John McCain's campaign is finishing a hard-hitting television ad highlighting Barack Obama 's ties to shady Chicago land dealer Tony Rezko, the one-time Obama patron who was convicted earlier this summer of fraud. A campaign official said that the decision to Go Rezko was Obama's. "He's opened the door to this," the official said. The ad will be released to network news divisions in time for their broadcasts tonight. Though McCain is widely perceived to to drawn first blood by attacking Obama's character, the official said that the difference between Obama's mocking McCain for his wealth and his shaky...

Here is a new ad put out by the American Issues Project about Barack Obama's association with unrepentant terrorist William Ayers. Obama began his political career in Chicago in the home of Ayers, who held a fundraiser for him. . . (see video)

From McCain campaign: Please see comment from me on Barack Obama’s new ad supposedly running in Georgia: “Barack Obama’s ad is ridiculous. Because of John McCain, corruption was exposed and people like Jack Abramoff went to jail. “However, if Barack Obama wants to have a discussion about truly questionable associations, let’s start with his relationship with the unrepentant terrorist William Ayers, at whose home Obama’s political career was reportedly launched. Mr. Ayers was a leader of the Weather Underground, a terrorist group responsible for countless bombings against targets including the U.S. Capitol, the Pentagon and numerous police stations, courthouses and...

DENVER (AP/CBS4) An advocacy group for Somali immigrants has cautioned against linking terrorism to a man found dead in a Denver hotel with a pound of highly toxic sodium cyanide in his room. U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey said Thursday terrorism couldn't be ruled out, but that it was not indicated in the investigation. Saleman Abdirahman Dirie, 29, of Ottawa was found dead Monday, and police say a powder found in his room was cyanide. The cause of death hasn't been established. Police say they don't suspect foul play and the FBI says there's no apparent connection to terrorism. The...

It has the makings of international intrigue. Less than two weeks before the Democratic National Convention a man has been found dead in a Denver hotel room with a container of what authorities initially suspect to be the deadly poison cyanide. Adding to the intrigue is that the dead man, Saleman Abdirahman Dirie, 29, appears to be from outside the U.S. No passport was found on Dirie, who is believed to have entered the country from Canada. A large container of a white powdery substance was found in the man's room on the fourth floor of the Burnsley Hotel at...

AUGUST 12--Imprisoned Unabomber Ted Kaczynski is upset that his former Montana cabin is on display at a Washington, D.C. museum, contending that the FBI's decision to allow its "public exhibition" runs counter to his victims's desire to limit further publicity about the deadly terror spree. Kaczynski, housed in the "supermax" federal prison in Florence, Colorado, learned of the cabin's display via a June 19 ad in the Washington Post, according to a handwritten letter he recently sent to a three-judge U.S. Court of Appeals panel. A copy of the letter can be found below. Referring to "publicity created by the...

By Michelle Malkin  •  August 12, 2008 11:38 AM Remember the Jeep Jihadi who attempted to mow down students at UNC-Chapel Hill in the name of Allah two years ago in a botched attempt to “avenge the deaths of Muslims around the world”? He finally pleaded guilty this morning to nine counts of attempted first-degree murder.Hat tip - Bob Owens.Reminder: A suspect who is accused of hitting students with a sport utility vehicle at the University of North Carolina made his first court appearance Monday.Mohammad Taheri-azar, a 2005 UNC-Chapel Hill graduate, smiled and waved before his hearing Monday. Taheri-azar told the...

WASHINGTON – Senator Chuck Grassley today began asking tough questions of the Department of Justice and the FBI following the release of documents implicating Dr. Bruce Ivins as the only suspect in the Amerithrax investigation. “This has been a long investigation full of missteps and mistakes. There’s been too much secrecy up to this point and it deserves a full and thorough vetting,” Grassley said. “There are clearly a lot of unanswered questions and it’s time to start a dialogue so we can get answers.” Here is a copy of the text of Grassley’s letter. The Honorable Michael B. Mukasey...

Pentagon Makes Fighting Extremism Top Priority Seven years after the Sept. 11 attacks, the Pentagon on Thursday officially named "the long war" against global extremism as its top priority and pledged to avert any conventional military threat from China or Russia through dialogue. The Defense Department, in a new national defense strategy, also emphasized the need to subordinate military operations to "soft power" initiatives to undermine Islamist militancy by promoting economic, political and social development in vulnerable corners of the world. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said he hoped the change would help establish permanent institutional support for counterinsurgency skills...

Terrorism: The time comes in every fringe group's existence when it must decide to stay legitimate and obey the law or leap into violence and terrorism. The animal rights movement seems to have chosen the latter.Make no mistake: The terrorism committed by the animal rights movement and some extreme environmental groups is real. Like all terrorists, they use force, threats and destruction of property to intimidate people into submission. Having lost the debate in the marketplace of ideas, they choose instead to terrorize. As Jerry Vlasak, a spokesman for the Animal Liberation Front, told the AP, "If you had to...

A map of President Bush's motorcade to Camp David was found last week in the possession of a teenager accused of stockpiling weapons and bomb-making materials, according to prosecutors. With the possibility that the motorcade was a target, federal authorities have joined police in investigating Collin Matthew McKenzie-Gude, 18, who allegedly was storing the weapons and materials just outside Washington, D.C., at the Bethesda, Md., home where he lives with his parents. MyFOXDC.com reports that Assistant State's Attorney Peter Feeney disclosed the discovery of the map of Camp David during a court hearing on Tuesday in Rockville, Md. The map...

LAS VEGAS -- An unemployed graphic designer who told investigators that he found making ricin an "exotic idea" pleaded guilty Monday to possessing the deadly toxin in a hotel room here. Roger Bergendorff, 57, also pleaded guilty to a federal weapons charge. (A second weapons charge was dropped.) He could face up to 20 years in prison at his Nov. 3 sentencing, though prosecutors are recommending that he serve a little more than three years. Bergendorff reportedly fantasized about harming people with the poison -- he had sketched an "injection delivery device" disguised as a pen -- but never carried...

For all of the national chatter that persists about international terrorists striking the United States, this weekend's firebombings in Santa Cruz offered us a frightening reminder that our greatest dangers may be right here at home. Thankfully, no one was hurt in Saturday morning's firebombs. David Feldheim, a UC Santa Cruz biologist, and his young family escaped an ignition at their own home by climbing down a fire ladder. And there was no one in the Volvo station wagon that was destroyed by a firebomb around the same time. But the perennial nature of these attacks on scientists who conduct...

Imagine if a group of rabid creationists started fire-bombing the homes of University of California professors to prevent them from teaching evolution. Area politicians would be holding competing press conferences to assure the public that they would take on the violent zealots, who have declared war, not only on good academics and their families, but on science itself. No need to imagine. Across California, a different group of zealots has done just that. True believers have distributed personal information on scientists and their families. They've placed firebombs in medical researchers' homes and cars. They've donned hoods on their heads and...

Investigators sifting the evidence of two firebombings targeting UC Santa Cruz biologists believe the potentially lethal devices are similar to ones used in the past by animal rights activists, authorities said today. The bombs were so powerful they were like "Molotov cocktails on steroids," said Santa Cruz police Capt. Steve Clark. One struck the home of assistant biology Professor David Feldheim on Saturday morning, forcing him to flee with his family. The other exploded just a few minutes earlier, gutting a car parked outside the campus home of a second researcher. Later, Santa Cruz County sheriff's deputies went to the...

SANTA CRUZ — Firebombs were intentionally set on a porch and in a car belonging to two UC Santa Cruz researchers in separate incidents early Saturday in what police have classified as acts of domestic terrorism. Police are calling one of the bombings an attempted homicide. In one incident, a faculty member's home on Village Circle off High Street was intentionally firebombed about 5:43 a.m., according to police. The residence belonged to UCSC researcher David Feldheim, a neuroscientist who works with mice. He was one of 13 researchers listed in threatening animal rights pamphlets found Tuesday in a downtown coffee...

<p>WASHINGTON - Former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, whose office was a target of the anthrax attacks in 2001, said Sunday the suicide of the government's main suspect does not mean the case is over.</p> <p>Daschle said the FBI has not given him any new updates. He also raised questions about the quality of the investigation, noting that the government recently paid out almost $6 million to a former Army scientist, Steven Hatfill, who accused authorities of unfairly targeting him in the anthrax case.</p>

One adult was killed and eight others wounded -- six of them seriously -- when a man opened fire during a children's play Sunday morning at a Unitarian church in Knoxville, Tennessee, police and church members said.

A California terrorist who plotted to wage war against the United States was sentenced Monday to more than 12 1/2 years in prison, prosecutors said. Gregory Patterson, 24, of Gardena was part of a domestic terrorist cell that intended to wage jihad, or holy war, against U.S. military facilities, as well as Israeli and Jewish targets and "infidels," the U.S. Justice Department said. Another member of the cell, Levar Washington, 30, was sentenced to 22 years in prison last month. The men had pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court last December to conspiring to wage war against the United States....

A former college student who was sentenced to 12½ years in federal prison today broke down crying as he apologized for his part in a rare domestic terrorism plot to kill Jewish civilians, as well as attack U.S. military sites and recruiting centers in Southern California. Gregory Patterson, 24, of Los Angeles pleaded guilty in December to two counts: conspiracy to levy war against the United States through terrorism and conspiracy to possess and discharge firearms. "Your honor, I'm thoroughly embarrassed and appalled by my actions," a shackled Patterson told U.S. District Court Judge Cormac J. Carney. "I don't even...

Welcome to your Monday morning blood-boiler. The NY Post reports that a jihadi group in NYC planning on running a series of subway ads is led by a Muslim imam tied to the terror plot to bomb the city’s landmarks. Submission: Allah board!An Islamic group plans to blitz 1,000 subway cars with advertisements this September in a campaign being promoted by a Brooklyn imam whom federal officials have linked to a plot to blow up city landmarks.The group says its mission is to explain the true nature of Islam to non-Muslims who believe the religion is bent on acts of...