Free Republic

Husband in double slaying had gambling, real estate, political ties; deaths appear 'motive specific,' official says -- The man who was killed alongside his wife in their Pleasanton country club home was a "complicated" and, at times, controversial local figure with political, gambling and real estate ties, those who knew him said. Ernie Scherer, 60, was a passionate conservative who once worked for former Republican Congressman Bill Baker. He dabbled on the professional poker circuit and was an active real estate investor who bought and sold homes across the country. "Local politics was as much a hobby to him as...

A new Islamic advocacy group in Boca Raton is under scrutiny for its ties to William W. Baker, a former chairman of the neo-Nazi political party of presidential candidate David Duke who was run out of town last year when he attempted to speak at Florida Atlantic University. Local Jewish and civic leaders said Friday they were alarmed that the Assadiq Islamic Education Foundation, whose headquarters are listed at 831 E. Palmetto Park Road in Boca, had invited Baker back to Boca as featured speaker at an April 30 banquet at the Boca Marriott. Invited by Muslim students to speak...

Penn's Muslim Students Association recently invited Bill Baker, head of Christians and Muslims for Peace, to speak at Penn's recent Islam Awareness Week. What kind of awareness was Baker's $5,000 fee supposed to bring? Baker chaired the Populist Party, founded and bankrolled by Willis Carto, best known for his neo-Nazi Institute for Historical Review - which publishes pseudo-academic fabrications denying the Holocaust - and for his ties to the Ku Klux Klan, which has mutilated and/or murdered thousands of blacks. In 1988, the presidential candidate of his Populist Party was David Duke, former "Grand Wizard" of the Ku Klux Klan....

Last week, two Philadelphia universities became the home of a growing, disturbing alliance of radical Muslims and white anti-Semites. The Muslim Student Association, a Wahhabi Islamist front, invited Dr. Bill Baker to speak at the University of Pennsylvania and Temple University on the similarities between Christianity and Islam. Baker had recently been fired from Rev. Robert Schuller’s Crystal Cathedral after California media revealed Baker was a founder of an anti-Semitic and neo-Nazi political group, the Populist Party. To make matters worse, UPenn paid Baker $5,000 for his insights. Thanks to FrontPage Magazine and some local activists, the invitation did not...