Free Republic

I’m thinking we should move to South Carolina. No, not me and the family. The whole city of Yonkers. In June 2008, longtime Yonkers manufacturer Stewart EFI left the city, taking with it a few hundred manufacturing jobs. Then, a few weeks ago, the Precision Valve Corporation, one of Yonkers’s largest employers and a company founded in the city, announced that it was moving to the Palmetto State. Precision Valve vice president Bob Reto explained the relocation delicately: “The decision was driven by the need to operate under the greater efficiencies afforded in South Carolina.” Mayor Phil Amicone, by contrast,...

A New York councilman whose home was bombed by Barack Obama's friend and political mentor chastised the Illinois senator's close relationship with the violent, Vietnam-era radical who was once a fugitive from U.S. justice. Obama has worked hard to distance himself William Ayers, the co-founder of the domestic terrorist group Weather Underground, and who could blame the Democratic presidential candidate? For years a fugitive from U.S. justice, Ayers has proudly admitted planting bombs on the Capitol, Pentagon and other government buildings to protest U.S. policy. Ayers publicly says that he doesn't regret setting bombs and that in fact his group...

I am a child of the ‘60s. I grew up with the radical twaddle of people like Tom Hayden (the Ted Baxter of the radical Left), and Romper Room Revolutionaries William Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn, the Mao and Jiang Qing of adolescent radicalism. It was an overheated time made worse by nursery school traitors. It was a time during which the most pampered generation in the history of mankind went into an extended tantrum, punctuated only by the indulgent sighs of their misguided and clueless parents who still apparently thought the destructive impulses of their little darlings were somehow cute....

Barack Obama's supporters have trivialized his connections to former Weather Underground terrorists William Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn. "This is a guy who lives in my neighborhood," Obama told ABC's George Stephanopoulos on April 16. Campaign strategist David Axelrod told CNN Monday that Obama "certainly didn't know the history" of these two barbarians when they hosted a reception for him when he launched his political career. Obama might not have heard of Ayers and Dohrn's brutality from the '60s through the '80s had they merely tossed a rock or two in anger. But these two went much, much farther. In 1970,...

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...

The McCain campaign, in a continuing effort to link Barack Obama to domestic terrorism, released a statement Wednesday from a New York supporter, recounting how his family home was firebombed by the radical 1960s group founded by Obama supporter William Ayers. But the McCain supporter, John M. Murtagh, has his own ties to radical protesters: He served as a lawyer for a Catholic priest who led protests at an abortion clinic that turned violent. Mr. Murtagh embarked on a media campaign in the spring to publicize the 1970 firebombing of his family home by the Weather Underground, the group that...

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...