Bill Ayers

Bill Ayers Invited to Speak to Illinois High School Students
By Terry Trippany | March 29, 2009 | 7:30 PM EDT

This afternoon I learned that Bill Ayers has been invited to speak to high school students in the suburb of Naperville Illinois where he will discuss his days in the Weather Underground. (h/t Doug Ross Journal). The school district is defending the decision with the laughable claim that they would never invite anyone to the school that advocated violence. No kidding, this isn't a joke.

"While we firmly believe in exposing students to a wide variety of speakers and opinions, offering them the chance to experience different viewpoints and the opportunity to hone their critical thinking skills (one of the tenets of our mission), please know that we would never invite anyone who advocates violence," District 203 said through a news release issued Friday evening. "Our understanding is that Bill Ayers does not, although this point is being actively debated by several who have contacted us. In addition, administrators from other school districts who have heard his presentation to students, have indicated that Ayers focuses on students being involved in social justice."

Really, this claim is being actively debated? Bombings and dead people weren't enough to convince these educators that violent activism is what Bill Ayers is all about?

Times Watch Quotes of Note -- Nicer to Bomb-Throwing Ayers Than William Buckley
By Clay Waters | March 15, 2009 | 9:21 AM EDT

Presenting the latest edition of Times Watch Quotes of Note: Some of the most biased quotes from the New York Times. Nicer to Bomb-Thrower Ayers Than Conservative Buckley"In your new book, Race Course: Against White Supremacy, you and your wife, Bernardine Dohrn, describe your long struggle against racism and social injustice. Do you think Obama's victory has put America on a new course?""How did you feel when Obama publicly disowned you, describing you as a guy in his neighborhood who had committed ‘despicable acts' when he was eight years old?""How do you feel when you wake up?""You're weirdly cheerful for a former bomb-thrower."-- Some of New York Times Magazine "Q&A" interviewer Deborah Solomon's questions to former Weather Underground bomber Bill Ayers, February 15. vs."You have made so many offensive comments over the years. Do you regret any of them?""You seem indifferent to suffering. Have you ever suffered yourself?"-- Some of Solomon's questions to the late founder of National Review, William F. Buckley, in a July 11, 2004 New York Times Magazine interview.

Sanitized Graphic Novel to be Published About 'Bill the Bomber' Ayers
By P.J. Gladnick | February 8, 2009 | 8:14 AM EST

Have you heard about a graphic novel called "Joey the Seminarian?" It is about young Joseph Djugashvili and his adventures in a Tiflis seminary. Joey is quite an excellent student who writes poetry and is an excellent singer who performs in the choir and at weddings. Of course, this graphic novel conveniently leaves out the fact that young Joey Djugashvili grew up to become Joe Stalin the dictator who caused millions to lose their lives in brutal slave labor camps and via starvation as well as through mass liquidations. Yes, I'm just kidding about that graphic novel but it turns out that an equally whitewashed graphic novel is soon to be published about "Bill the Bomber" Ayers. Forget about his acts of cowardly terrorism via bombing. As reported by Calvin Reid in Publishers Weekly  the graphic novel will be based on Ayer's whitewashed memoir  To Teach: The Journey of a Teacher (emphasis mine):

Teachers College Press, a scholarly, professional and trade publisher focused on the theory and practice of teacher education, has reached agreement on a two-book deal with William Ayers, the University of Illinois at Chicago professor, lauded educational theorist and former leader of the radical 1960s Weather Underground. And, yes, Ayers is indeed the same figure dragooned into the 2008 presidential race in a controversial attempt to use his background in radical politics and a minor acquaintance with Barack Obama to undermine Obama’s presidential run.

HuffPo Hugs a Domestic Terrorist: Bill Ayers Has a Column at Huffington Post
By Tom Blumer | January 3, 2009 | 8:59 AM EST

How do you elaborate on a headline like this? (HT Hot Air Headlines)

The mainstreaming of a domestic terrorist continues apace. Of course, Huffington Post isn't "mainstream" in any real sense, but is considered as such by out-of-touch Old Media, which (post-election, of course) has frequently feted the 1970s Pentagon bomber.

Here's the Huffington Post URL in case you wish to visit (I'd rather not hyperlink it):

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bill-ayers/obama-and-education-refor_b_154857.html

At the link, HuffPo describes Ayers as "Author and Distinguished Professor of Education and Senior University Scholar at the University of Illinois at Chicago." There is, of course, no mention of his violent Weather Underground history.

Next up:

Dennis Miller: ‘Smartest Guy’ Obama is Either ‘Oblivious’ or ‘Disingenuous’
By Brad Wilmouth | December 11, 2008 | 1:03 PM EST

On Wednesday’s The O’Reilly Factor on FNC, during the show’s regular "Miller Time" segment, comedian Dennis Miller used humor to make a serious point about Barack Obama’s connections to corrupt and questionable characters in Illinois, and whether the President-elect was aware of the darker sides of his colleagues. Miller: "It’s just nice to know that my President-elect went through that entire system – all of these guys – Ayers, Blagojevich, Rezko, the Reverend Wright – and he didn’t notice any of them. At his worst, he is oblivious. At his absolute worst, he is disingenuous. He had to know something about some of these guys. ... We’re told that he’s the smartest guy on the planet on one hand. In the other hand, he never noticed any of this stuff. Come on, get the antenna up there, Barack. You got to wake up."

Matthews to Ayers: 'I Agitate My Way, You Agitate Your Way'
By Geoffrey Dickens | December 10, 2008 | 7:04 PM EST

Chris Matthews invited Bill Ayers on Wednesday night's "Hardball," and actually confronted him about his bombing of Capitol Hill during his days as a member of the '60s terrorist group Weather Underground, as the former Capitol Hill police officer emotionally observed: "I was a Capitol policeman at the time, so I was one of the guys that could have been killed obviously at the time you put that, your guys put that bomb in there. So I have a little personal interest. It wasn't just vandalism. To me it was life-threatening to the guys I worked with. And there were some pretty good guys working there."

However Matthews, who paradoxically may not even be alive to conduct this interview today if the Weather Underground's bombs were more devastating, devoted most of the interview tossing softballs Ayers' way, as the two often agreed with each other on Barack Obama and Iraq policy as the "Hardball" host pointed out they only really differed on how to spread their points of view: "Well, Mr. Ayers, with all due respect, you agitate your way, I agitate my way."

Ayers and Dohrn Decry 'Highly Privatized War Machine of Domination and Mayhem'
By Tim Graham | November 30, 2008 | 9:08 AM EST

Anyone who doesn't think Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn are currently radical should pay attention to the second half of their interview that aired on Pacifica Radio's Democracy Now! program on Monday. Listen to Dohrn wail about all the disasters the U.S. military is allegedly causing, and how we need to get "off the necks and the backs" of the world:  

NPR's Terry Gross Asks Bill Ayers About Palin-Prodded Death Threats
By Tim Graham | November 20, 2008 | 3:50 PM EST

Unrepentant domestic terrorist Bill Ayers got a "distinguished professor" reception for most of the hour on NPR’s nationally distributed show Fresh Air with Terry Gross on Tuesday. But Gross was much more hostile to Bill O’Reilly back in 2003 than she was to Ayers.

Eyeblast.tv Asks Ayers About Sirhan Sirhan Book Dedication...Where Was The MSM?
By Kerry Picket | November 18, 2008 | 2:26 AM EST
William Ayers spoke to a Washington, D.C. audience tonight about his views on the American education system. The Ayers speech included slams towards Fox News and Governor Sarah Palin.

 The event was full of mostly supporters given the amount of loud applause he received. A true question and answer session never really occurred, as audience members were required to write their questions on note cards for pre-screening. Knowing organizers would only choose softball questions, I confronted Ayers with Radio Equalizer's Brian Maloney.

I asked Ayers about the dedication to Robert Kennedy’s assassin Sirhan Sirhan in his 1974 book Prairie Fire. The video is uploaded at Eyeblast.tv:

Ayers, Wife Complain on Pacifica Radio: He Became a 'Cartoon Character'
By Tim Graham | November 14, 2008 | 10:45 PM EST

Evidence of how much softer the ABC interview with Bill Ayers could have gone on Friday was displayed by the radical-left (and yet taxpayer-funded) Pacifica Radio network, as Ayers and his wife and fellow Weather Underground bomber Bernadine Dohrn appeared on the talk show "Democracy Now!" Co-host Juan Gonzalez asked: "As you say, in 1968, you were expecting that the war would be ended, because a majority of the population opposed it.

After Obama Win, GMA's Cuomo Decides to Grill Bill Ayers
By Matthew Vadum | November 14, 2008 | 11:02 AM EST

Isn't this convenient?

CNN Implies Conservatives are Partially to Blame For Murders of Illegals?
By Matthew Balan | November 12, 2008 | 9:14 PM EST

Joe Johns, CNN Correspondent | Newsbusters.orgOn Wednesday’s Newsroom program, a report by CNN correspondent Joe Johns, along with a subsequent interview by anchor Rick Sanchez, raised the implication that anti-illegal immigration rhetoric, particularly from conservatives, might be partially to blame for a spike in so-called hate crimes against Latinos. During a clip in Johns’ report, which was about the recent murder of an immigrant from Ecuador by teenagers, columnist Ruben Navarrette speculated that "[w]hen people go out on the airwaves or in print or at the stump as a politician, and they beat that drum, they shouldn’t be surprised. At the end of the day, many people out there, and particularly young people, who are very impressionable, think, ‘Hey, you know what? This is one group we can do this to.’" At the end of his report, Johns added that "[t]he question that’s already being raised by activist groups in the newspapers is whether anti-immigrant rhetoric has created a climate for this kind of thing."

After the report, Sanchez interviewed Mark Potok of the liberal Southern Poverty Law Center, who added that "really, racist conspiracy theories and false propaganda....have made their way out into the larger anti-immigration movement -- the Minutemen groups and so on. And before you know it, they are on talk radio, they are on some cable news talk shows." Strangely, the CNN anchor then went on a bit of a tangent by bringing how Newsweek recently reported that "the Secret Service has now confirmed that threats against Barack Obama spiked when Sarah Palin began impugning his patriotism."