Posted on 10/19/2008 8:22:41 AM PDT by KayEyeDoubleDee
It’s nice to be the guy getting tips for once instead of the guy sending them. Yesterday I got two great tips from Morgen, a reader who had found my earlier posts digging into the Obama Ayers connection. Both tips appear to check out and the second one is, I think, big news.
First, the smaller one…
This Chicago Annenberg Challenge website from 2002 shows the total amount of funds given to Bill Ayers’ Small Schools Workshop from 1995 to 2001. The amount is not the $175K I had reported earlier. According to this page, the total given under Barack Obama’s direct supervision was $1,056,162. Adding that amount to the money given by the Joyce Foundation and Woods Fund during Obama’s tenure brings the grand total to $1,968,718. Just shy of two million dollars! That’s a lot of scratch, to put it bluntly. And don’t forget, this doesn’t count the 3/4 million that went to John Ayers during the same time period.
Now here’s the second and bigger break, again big hat tip to Morgen for his work on this…
Bill Ayers and Barack Obama shared an office. Ayers’ Small Schools Workshop, the one Obama directed all that money too is located at 115 S. Sangamon Street, Chicago, Illinois 60607 [Note the link is to a year 2000 version of their website]. Here’s a screen grab from the website’s footer:
In 1998, the address for the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, where Obama presumably worked, was 115 S. Sangamon Street, Chicago, Illinois 60607. Here’s a copy of their 1998 tax return with that address:
The CAC moved to a new address sometime in 1999 or 2000, but the shared office probably persisted for at least three years. I can’t say for sure because 1998 is the earliest tax information available online. [Correction: I can say for sure that they shared the same building for the years 1995-1998. Here is a 1995 progress report from the CAC with the same address.]
Now remember, the NY Times described Obama and Ayers as having “crossed paths.” Ben LaBolt, Obama’s spokesman said:
Mr. LaBolt said the men first met in 1995 through the education project, the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, and have encountered each other occasionally in public life or in the neighborhood.
I’m going to suggest that two guys working in the same building for a period of years probably crossed paths pretty often. For all we know, they had lunch together on a daily basis. Maybe, in an effort at conservation, they were even carpool buddies. After all, Ayers is a guy from Obama’s neighborhood.
Would someone at the Times like to contact Mr. LaBolt for a follow-up?
Update: Made the correction above. Also, Obama was a state senator from 1996-2004. However, he still likely spent some significant time at the Sangamon street address, especially in 1995. But even after his election he would presumably be working on his CAC duties at the Sangamon office, not from some other location.
According to this letter dated 1995, Obama’s office was on the 3rd floor:
And according to this memo dated 1996, Small Schools Workshop was also on the 3rd floor:
Do you think maybe Obama and Bill Ayers ran into each other once in a while?
If you look at the Cook County Assessor's Office records:
http://www.cookcountyassessor.com/data/searchflat/search_res.asp?FAddress=100&TAddress=150&Dir=S&Street=SANGAMON&unit_apt_from=&unit_apt_to=&City=CHICAGO&add_search=Search+By+Addressthen it seems like the PIN for 115 S Sangamon St ought to be "17-17-213-004-0000". But they've completely wiped it from the system:
??? 17-17-213-004-000 for 115 S Sangamon St ???17-17-213-005-0000 for 117 S Sangamon St
17-17-213-006-0000 for 119 S Sangamon St
I guess that’s because the building was demolished. I think they were talking about turning it into a park.
From the meeting minutes posted above:
“He then explained that the city of Chicago wants the University-owned Sangamon Street Building, located at 115 South Sangamon Street, in order to develop a park on the site. He said that this property is located north of the Eisenhower Expressway, and north of the east side of the Chicago campus, but not contiguous to any other part of the campus. He noted that it had been a tuberculosis sanitarium in the past. He also indicated that the University had received an appraisal of $6.2 million for the property.”
I tried googling some of the people in that article, and checking their campaign contributions, but I didn't come up with anything.
In that case Powell is ignorant.
Barack Obama as CEO of CAC FAILED MISERABLY in his one attempt at educational reform. He spent $100 million plus, but Annenberg ITSELF (the people of stellar judgement, in Obama's view) stated that when they measured before and after, ther was NO MEASURABLE IMPROVEMENT in student acheivement....
$100 million spent and Obama (and Ayers) did not help a single Chicago student, and Lord knows, those kids need a LOT of help. This in itself is a scandal, AND NO ONE, not even here, will talk about it.
Obama is not an education REFORMER, he is an education DEFORMER
Hannity
Rush
Levin
Hannity
Rush
Levin
Repeat as often as necessary!!
[Obama] is named Chairman of the Board of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge founded by Bill Ayers
(article typo has Ayers instead of Obama)
In late 1993, Bill Ayers, now an associate professor of education at the University of Illinois Chicago Circle Campus, organized a team to put together a grant proposal to secure nearly $50 million from the Annenberg Challenge. The money was to be used by Ayers and co. to bolster the radical Local School Councils reform project that Ayers and Obama had championed back in 1988 through the ABCs.
The grant application was successful and in early 1995 Barack Obama was named chairman of the board of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge. Ayers was named co-chair of the Challenge’s operative and strategic body, the Chicago School Reform Collaborative. Ayers and Obama work together for the next five years on raising an additional $60 million in matching money from local foundations and corporations and using the money to intervene in the governance of the Chicago public schools.
The Challenge through a multi-million dollar Leadership Development Initiative intervened in the School Council elections in the middle of what was known as the Chicago School Wars. At the same time Chicago Mayor Richard Daley was pushing, successfully, to gut the power of the Councils.
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"The Small Schools Workshop was founded in 1991 at the University of Illinois at Chicago to provide support for teachers who were trying to create new smaller learning environments. Its director is Michael Klonsky, a former professor of education at UIC."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_Schools_Workshop
________________________________________________________
Some background on Bill Ayers' SDS comrade, Michael Klonsky
(Chicago Annenberg Challenge-related)
"One of Bill Ayers’ and Bernardine Dohrn’s comrades in the late 60s Students for a Democratic Society was Mike Klonsky. When Dohrn and Ayers moved in one direction toward the violent tactics of the Weather Underground, Klonsky, in the wake of the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia, dropped the pro-Russian communist politics of his parents and became a committed Maoist. As leader of the Communist Party (Marxist-Leninist) in 1977 [not to be confused with Communist Party USA. CPML no longer exists, CPUSA formed decades earlier and is still around-ETL], he travelled to Beijing and was toasted by the senior Beijing leadership.
When the crazy left of the 70s died in the 80s, Klonsky went to graduate school in education in Florida and then moved to Chicago.
While driving a cab there he [Michael Klonsky] was recruited by his old friend Bill Ayers to head up a new project called the Small Schools Workshop in 1991. It’s offices were in the Department of Education building at the University of Illinois Chicago Circle Campus where Ayers taught.
In 1995 the newly formed Chicago Annenberg Challenge headed by Ayers and Obama gave the Workshop a grant of $175,000.
The Annenberg Challenge also had its office space in the same building as Ayers Department and the Workshop, rent free courtesy of the University.
In 2008 Klonsky ran a blog on the official Obama campaign website on education policy and “social justice” teaching. When discussion of the Klonsky blog emerged in the blogosphere, it was promptly shut down by the campaign and all of the posts made by Klonsky were removed from the site."
________________________________________________________
In 1977, the October League was reorganized as the Communist Party (Marxist-Leninist) [again, not Communist Party USA (CPUSA) -ETL] and former SDS activist Michael Klonsky became party chairman. Also in 1977, Klonsky traveled to China and the CPML was recognized by the Chinese Communist Party as its official sister party in America.
(snip)
In January 1981, Michael Klonsky resigned as party chairman, and the CPML disbanded that same year.
The previous Red Encyclopedia description of the CPML was incorrectly combined with that of the Communist Party USA (Marxist-Leninist).
http://reds.linefeed.org/past.html
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From Investor's Business Daily (IBD), August 27, 2008:
"Ayers, now a tenured distinguished professor of education at UIC, works to educate teachers in socialist revolutionary ideology, urging that it be passed on to impressionable students.
One of Ayer's descriptions for a course called 'Improving Learning Environments' says prospective K-12 teachers need to 'be aware of the social and moral universe we inhabit and ... be a teacher capable of hope and struggle, outrage and action, teaching for social justice and liberation.
The Annenberg papers are quite extensive — 132 boxes containing 947 file folders with 70 linear feet of material. They undoubtedly contain more surprises regarding Obama's relationship with Ayers, one of many relationships Obama has sought to hide.'..."
Article: Annenberg Papers: Putting On Ayers?
http://www.ibdeditorial.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=304729375940845
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Voice of the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA [Maoist]
Revolution #63, October 1, 2006
Interview with Bill Ayers:
"On Progressive Education, Critical Thinking and the Cowardice of Some in Dangerous Times"
http://rwor.org/a/063/ayers-en.html
Neier, Aryeh…. founder of SDS, now President of George Soros, Open Society Institute
With the USSR and the comintern, the "leaders" in the West were not the real bosses.
Klonsky's involvement with Ayers and Obama is very important, because it's Klonsky who has the PRC connection.
Thank you for this, KIDD. And Morgen too!
115 S Sangamon St., 3rd floor, both men working for the common good.
It's a black box given such localational info as the sum and total. Speculation, however, would be that they crossed paths frequently, went out for smokes, had lunch.
The rest is speculation, but may resemble what follows:
Ayers: "Hey Barry, you know you're smart, you're attractive, you're young. Your skills are wasted here. We really need to get you out into the limelight. Exposure, man. You can do much good for the Challenge from high up than here."
Obama chuckles.
Obama: "Uh, what are your thoughts?"
Ayers: "Well listen, the senatorial race for our district is coming up, still plenty of time for filing. I've got a good-sized house and we'll send out RSVP to some of the luminaries, you know, Lakeside ladies and other wealthy donors. Penny Prizker could toss in a penny our four to help start the pot."
Obama: "The pot? Oh, for my senate run. And your wife, how could she help?"
Ayers: "Bernadine, she has the goods covered. We'll talk more later, talk to some people, and try to coalesce around a date."
Or something like that.
By the 1995-1998 timeframe, the plan was well on its way to being executed.
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