Free Republic

The press—and debate moderators—shouldn’t let Bill Ayers and Barack Obama off the hook. Back in the early eighties, in an interview with David Horowitz and Peter Collier, Bill Ayers remembered his reaction upon learning that he would not be prosecuted by the government for his bombing spree as a member of the Weather Underground. “Guilty as hell, free as a bird—America is a great country,” he exulted. Ayers is now a university professor, but he must have been exulting all over again after reading Saturday’s front-page story in the New York Times. The article explored the putative relationship between Ayers...

In one of the most exhaustive and damning reports on diversity in Hollywood, a new study finds that the films and television produced by major media companies are "whitewashed," and that an "epidemic of invisibility" runs top to bottom through the industry for women, minorities and LGBT people. A study to be released Monday by the Media, Diversity and Social Change Initiative at the University of Southern California's Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism offers one of the most wide-ranging examinations of the film and television industries, including a pointed "inclusivity index" of 10 major media companies -- from Disney...

Ayers was one of three keynote speakers at a major conference organized by a consortium of schools of education at some 30 or so middle sized universities called The Renaissance Group. Ayers was given the only keynote luncheon speaker spot at the conference. The two morning keynote speakers were none other than Arne Duncan, the Secretary of Education – and former foe of Ayers (and Obama) in the Chicago School Wars, and Undersecretary of Education Martha Kanter. A major theme of the Renaissance organization is finding ways to educate the “New American Student,” as described in a statement published a...

(Nov 27, 2013) Referred to as ‘Common Core lead standards authors’ by the Council of Chief State School Officers, David Coleman and Jason Zimba are just two in a long list of Common Core creators whose academic roots are with the education-for-a-revolution machine borne by Annenberg Institute, Carnegie Corporation, Bill Gates, et al. Today, Coleman and Zimba are head of Student Achievement Partners, an organization that played a leading role in developing the standards and actively supports districts and states in implementing them. Prior to Student Achiement Partners, Coleman and Zimba were co-founders of the Grow Network (now owned by...

(Dec 5, 2013) In an article published on Monday that advocates for Common Core standards, the Associated Press presents what amounts to the typical talking points for supporters when faced with criticism that Common Core is a federal takeover of education. The standards were created by the National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers to improve academic achievement and increase accountability. President Barack Obama and his administration embraced them. Actually, Barack Obama did not simply “embrace” a concept that others developed; instead, the very roots of Common Core are in the early ideas generated by him...

Imagine if, as you chat with your child’s first-grade teacher and ask about how he decided to embark on a career in education, he told you, “I walked out of jail and into my first teaching job.” Imagine him telling you that his days in jail and violent protesting were formative to his teaching philosophy. But the teacher who brags about such beginnings is now a “Distinguished Professor of Education.” Despite his specialty as “Professor of Curriculum and Instruction,” he trains future teachers to dispense with curricula and discipline, as well as tests and grades. His many books appear on...

U.S. President Barack Obama has settled into a Presidents Day holiday weekend of golf with friends at a secluded desert retreat where many presidents have found refuge from the storms of the White House. Obama is at Sunnylands, a southern California sanctuary that has become something of a "Camp David of the West," which was the intention of the late philanthropists Walter and Leonore Annenberg, who developed the place and who hosted former President Ronald Reagan on many New Year's holidays. Obama held a get-to-know-you summit last June with China's President Xi Jinping at the 200-acre (80-hectare) complex. Having enjoyed...

On April 8, House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi headlined a Boston conference on ''media reform.'' She was joined by four other congressmen, a senator, two FCC commissioners, a Nobel laureate and numerous liberal journalists. The 2,500-person event was sponsored by a group called Free Press, one of more than 180 different media-related organizations that receives money from liberal billionaire George Soros. Soros, who first made a name for himself in investing and currency trading, now makes his name in politics and policy. Since the 2004 election, the controversial financier has used his influence and billions to push a laundry list...

Factcheck.org -- A Fraudulent "Fact Check" Site Funded By Biased Political Group If you wanted to use a devious method to deceive people who are trying to differentiate between truth and lies on the Internet how would you do it? If you were extremely devious and had no conscience, you might set up a Web site with some official and unbiased sounding name that claims to be the encyclopedia of truth to be used as a tool for anyone who has the same biased view and wants to make believe to "back it up" with what they would like you...

The Chicago Annenberg Challenge: In 1995 William Ayers appointed Barack Obama as board chairman of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, which aimed to infuse students with a radical political commitment and emphasized social activism far more than academic achievement and test scores. Bankrolled by the billionaire publishing mogul Walter H. Annenberg and his charitable foundation, the Chicago Annenberg Challenge (CAC) was a five-year school-reform effort created ostensibly to improve public schools in Chicago and elsewhere across the United States. Mr. Annenberg seeded this initiative with $500 million. School reform initiative in the 1990s Founded by William Ayers, the former Weather Underground...

The Los Angeles-based liberal Annenberg Foundation, which through its organization FactCheck org., which led to the United States Supreme Court conclusion that the Certificate of Life Birth (COLB) posted on Barack Obama’s website is the Real McCoy, is now accusing Israel of depriving Palestinians of their daily water. According to the United States Supreme Court in December, 2008, “FactCheck.org staffers have now seen, touched, examined and photographed the original birth certificate. We conclude that it meets all of the requirements from the State Department for proving U.S. citizenship…Obama was born in the U.S. A. just as he has always said.”...

MULTIPLE ATTEMPTS TO REACH FACTCHECK STAFF ABOUT OBAMA’S PURPORTED COLB ARE IGNORED The Post & Email has tried on several occasions to reach the staff at Factcheck.org, an organization which describes itself as “a nonpartisan, nonprofit ‘consumer advocate’ for voters that aims to reduce the level of deception and confusion in U.S. politics. We monitor the factual accuracy of what is said by major U.S. political players in the form of TV ads, debates, speeches, interviews and news releases. Our goal is to apply the best practices of both journalism and scholarship, and to increase public knowledge and understanding.” However,...

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. The CAC was the brainchild of Bill Ayers, a founder of the Weather Underground in the 1960s. Among other feats, Mr. Ayers and his cohorts bombed the Pentagon, and he has never expressed regret for his actions. Barack Obama's first run for the Illinois State...

NEW YORK – A square, 32.01-carat emerald-cut diamond that billionaire philanthropist Leonore Annenberg bought for her 90th birthday sold for $7.7 million at auction on Wednesday. About the size of a walnut, the flawless, colorless diamond sits on a ring designed by Manhattan jeweler David Webb. It is flanked by two pear-shaped diamonds, one of them 1.61 carats and the other 1.51 carats. The ring was offered for sale by Annenberg's estate. Christie's auction house did not identify the buyer, who bid by phone. Annenberg died in March at the age of 91. She served as U.S. chief of protocol...

In his new book, "Barack and Michelle: Portrait of an American Marriage," Best-selling celebrity journalist, Christopher Andersen, has blown a huge hole in the Obama genius myth without intending to do so. Relying on inside sources, quite possibly Michelle Obama herself, Andersen describes how Dreams came to be published -- just as I had envisioned it in my articles on the authorship of Dreams.  With the deadline pressing, Michelle recommended that Barack seek advice from "his friend and Hyde Park neighbor Bill Ayers." To flesh out his family history, Obama had taped interviews with various family members. Andersen writes, "These...

We’ve burned through rather a lot of pixels combating the claims of those who deny that Barack Obama is eligible to be president of the United States. He is, by virtue of having been born in Hawaii, as attested to repeatedly by state officials and even by the flagship of conservative publications, the National Review. And, for the 10 percent of you out there who aren’t entirely sure, yes, Hawaii is part of the United States. We’ve given the denialists a lot of grief for the times they’ve been wrong. But we’d be remiss not to note when they get...

You are all so well informed that I am sure you are aware of: Chicago Annenberg Challenge, a not-for-profit group charged with spending tens of millions of dollars it obtained through its affiliation with a school-improvement foundation created by late Ambassador Walter H.Annenberg. Obama chaired the Chicago Annenberg Challenge's board of directors. Ayers served on the Chicago School Reform Collaborative, which made recommendations to the board on which organizations should get grants. The groups worked on school-reform efforts between 1995 and 2000. This from Michelle Malkins web page of today. If you read it, you will readily see why we...

Keep Your Insurance? Not Everyone. Obama's claim depends on what employers would likely do under several legislative scenarios. Summary President Obama has repeatedly said that under the health care overhaul efforts in Congress, "if you like your health care plan, you keep your health care plan." But he can’t make that promise to everyone. In fact, under the House bill, some employers might have to modify plans after a five-year grace period if they don’t meet minimum benefits standards. Furthermore, some firms are likely to buy different coverage for their workers than they have now, or simply drop coverage and...

Election '08: At an education forum in Venezuela, Bill Ayers showed the real issue is not his terrorist past. It's the socialist revolutionary agenda that he and Barack Obama want to impose on the nation's schools.Still more evidence of how the media are in the tank for Obama was evident in Tom Brokaw's description of Ayers on Sunday's "Meet The Press." "School reformer" is how Brokaw identified the co-founder of the Weather Underground, the radical organization that, among other activities, bombed government buildings, banks, police departments and military bases in the early 1970s. Yeah, right: Ayers is a school reformer...

CHICAGO (CBS) ― "At Myra Bradwell Elementary School, 44 out of 77 students did not pass the eighth grade. A startling number of children are falling through the cracks at one Chicago Public School. More than half of the kids didn't even pass the eighth grade. As CBS 2's Jim Williams reports there is fierce debate about who's to blame. It is a debate that has gone on for years in poor communities: do you blame the schools for the students' poor performance or do you blame their parents?"......