From NewsMax. com a political watchdog group...


Secret, Foreign Money Floods Into Obama Campaign

Monday, September 29, 2008 9:23 PM

By: Kenneth R. Timmerman Article Font Size


More than half of the whopping $426.9 million Barack Obama has raised has come from small donors whose names the Obama campaign won't disclose.


And questions have arisen about millions more in foreign donations the Obama campaign has received that apparently have not been vetted as legitimate.


Obama has raised nearly twice that of John McCain's campaign, according to new campaign finance report.

But because of Obama’s high expenses during the hotly contested Democratic primary season and an early decision to forgo public campaign money and the spending limits it imposes, all that cash has not translated into a financial advantage — at least, not yet.


The Obama campaign and the Democratic National Committee began September with $95 million in cash, according to reports filed with the Federal Election Commission (FEC).


The McCain camp and the Republican National Committee had $94 million, because of an influx of $84 million in public money.


But Obama easily could outpace McCain by $50 million to $100 million or more in new donations before Election Day, thanks to a legion of small contributors whose names and addresses have been kept secret.


Unlike the McCain campaign, which has made its complete donor database available online, the Obama campaign has not identified donors for nearly half the amount he has raised, according to the Center for Responsive Politics (CRP).


Federal law does not require the campaigns to identify donors who give less than $200 during the election cycle. However, it does require that campaigns calculate running totals for each donor and report them once they go beyond the $200 mark.


Surprisingly, the great majority of Obama donors never break the $200 threshold.


“Contributions that come under $200 aggregated per person are not listed,” said Bob Biersack, a spokesman for the FEC. “They don’t appear anywhere, so there’s no way of knowing who they are.”


The FEC breakdown of the Obama campaign has identified a staggering $222.7 million as coming from contributions of $200 or less. Only $39.6 million of that amount comes from donors the Obama campaign has identified.


It is the largest pool of unidentified money that has ever flooded into the U.S. election system, before or after the McCain-Feingold campaign finance reforms of 2002.


Biersack would not comment on whether the FEC was investigating the huge amount of cash that has come into Obama’s coffers with no public reporting.


But Massie Ritsch, a spokesman for CRP, a campaign-finance watchdog group, dismissed the scale of the unreported money.


“We feel comfortable that it isn’t the $20 donations that are corrupting a campaign,” he told Newsmax.


But those small donations have added up to more than $200 million, all of it from unknown and unreported donors.


Ritsch acknowledges that there is skepticism about all the unreported money, especially in the Obama campaign coffers.


“We and seven other watchdog groups asked both campaigns for more information on small donors,” he said. “The Obama campaign never responded,” whereas the McCain campaign “makes all its donor information, including the small donors, available online.”


The rise of the Internet as a campaign funding tool raises new questions about the adequacy of FEC requirements on disclosure. In pre-Internet fundraising, almost all political donations, even small ones, were made by bank check, leaving a paper trail and limiting the amount of fraud.


But credit cards used to make donations on the Internet have allowed for far more abuse.


“While FEC practice is to do a post-election review of all presidential campaigns, given their sluggish metabolism, results can take three or four years,” said Ken Boehm, the chairman of the conservative National Legal and Policy Center.


Already, the FEC has noted unusual patterns in Obama campaign donations among donors who have been disclosed because they have gone beyond the $200 minimum.


FEC and Mr. Doodad Pro


When FEC auditors have questions about contributions, they send letters to the campaign’s finance committee requesting additional information, such as the complete address or employment status of the donor.


Many of the FEC letters that Newsmax reviewed instructed the Obama campaign to “redesignate” contributions in excess of the finance limits.


Under campaign finance laws, an individual can donate $2,300 to a candidate for federal office in both the primary and general election, for a total of $4,600. If a donor has topped the limit in the primary, the campaign can “redesignate” the contribution to the general election on its books.


In a letter dated June 25, 2008, the FEC asked the Obama campaign to verify a series of $25 donations from a contributor identified as “Will, Good” from Austin, Texas.


Mr. Good Will listed his employer as “Loving” and his profession as “You.”


A Newsmax analysis of the 1.4 million individual contributions in the latest master file for the Obama campaign discovered 1,000 separate entries for Mr. Good Will, most of them for $25.


In total, Mr. Good Will gave $17,375.


Following this and subsequent FEC requests, campaign records show that 330 contributions from Mr. Good Will were credited back to a credit card. But the most recent report, filed on Sept. 20, showed a net cumulative balance of $8,950 — still well over the $4,600 limit.


There can be no doubt that the Obama campaign noticed these contributions, since Obama’s Sept. 20 report specified that Good Will’s cumulative contributions since the beginning of the campaign were $9,375.


In an e-mailed response to a query from Newsmax, Obama campaign spokesman Ben LaBolt pledged that the campaign would return the donations. But given the slowness with which the campaign has responded to earlier FEC queries, there’s no guarantee that the money will be returned before the Nov. 4 election.


Similarly, a donor identified as “Pro, Doodad,” from “Nando, NY,” gave $19,500 in 786 separate donations, most of them for $25. For most of these donations, Mr. Doodad Pro listed his employer as “Loving” and his profession as “You,” just as Good Will had done.


But in some of them, he didn’t even go this far, apparently picking letters at random to fill in the blanks on the credit card donation form. In these cases, he said he was employed by “VCX” and that his profession was “VCVC.”


Following FEC requests, the Obama campaign began refunding money to Doodad Pro in February 2008. In all, about $8,425 was charged back to a credit card. But that still left a net total of $11,165 as of Sept. 20, way over the individual limit of $4,600.


Here again, LaBolt pledged that the contributions would be returned but gave no date.


In February, after just 93 donations, Doodad Pro had already gone over the $2,300 limit for the primary. He was over the $4,600 limit for the general election one month later.


In response to FEC complaints, the Obama campaign began refunding money to Doodad Pro even before he reached these limits. But his credit card was the gift that kept on giving. His most recent un-refunded contributions were on July 7, when he made 14 separate donations, apparently by credit card, of $25 each.


Just as with Mr. Good Will, there can be no doubt that the Obama campaign noticed the contributions, since its Sept. 20 report specified that Doodad’s cumulative contributions since the beginning of the campaign were $10,965.


Foreign Donations


And then there are the overseas donations — at least, the ones that we know about.


The FEC has compiled a separate database of potentially questionable overseas donations that contains more than 11,500 contributions totaling $33.8 million. More than 520 listed their “state” as “IR,” often an abbreviation for Iran. Another 63 listed it as “UK,” the United Kingdom.


More than 1,400 of the overseas entries clearly were U.S. diplomats or military personnel, who gave an APO address overseas. Their total contributions came to just $201,680.


But others came from places as far afield as Abu Dhabi, Addis Ababa, Beijing, Fallujah, Florence, Italy, and a wide selection of towns and cities in France.


Until recently, the Obama Web site allowed a contributor to select the country where he resided from the entire membership of the United Nations, including such friendly places as North Korea and the Islamic Republic of Iran.


Unlike McCain’s or Sen. Hillary Clinton’s online donation pages, the Obama site did not ask for proof of citizenship until just recently. Clinton’s presidential campaign required U.S. citizens living abroad to actually fax a copy of their passport before a donation would be accepted.


With such lax vetting of foreign contributions, the Obama campaign may have indirectly contributed to questionable fundraising by foreigners.


In July and August, the head of the Nigeria’s stock market held a series of pro-Obama fundraisers in Lagos, Nigeria’s largest city. The events attracted local Nigerian business owners.


At one event, a table for eight at one fundraising dinner went for $16,800. Nigerian press reports claimed sponsors raked in an estimated $900,000.


The sponsors said the fundraisers were held to help Nigerians attend the Democratic convention in Denver. But the Nigerian press expressed skepticism of that claim, and the Nigerian public anti-fraud commission is now investigating the matter.


Concerns about foreign fundraising have been raised by other anecdotal accounts of illegal activities.


In June, Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi gave a public speech praising Obama, claiming foreign nationals were donating to his campaign.


“All the people in the Arab and Islamic world and in Africa applauded this man,” the Libyan leader said. “They welcomed him and prayed for him and for his success, and they may have even been involved in legitimate contribution campaigns to enable him to win the American presidency..."


Though Gadhafi asserted that fundraising from Arab and African nations were “legitimate,” the fact is that U.S. federal law bans any foreigner from donating to a U.S. election campaign.


The rise of the Internet and use of credit cards have made it easier for foreign nationals to donate to American campaigns, especially if they claim their donation is less than $200.


Campaign spokesman LaBolt cited several measures that the campaign has adopted to “root out fraud,” including a requirement that anyone attending an Obama fundraising event overseas present a valid U.S. passport, and a new requirement that overseas contributors must provide a passport number when donating online.


One new measure that might not appear obvious at first could be frustrating to foreigners wanting to buy campaign paraphernalia such as T-shirts or bumper stickers through the online store.


In response to an investigation conducted by blogger Pamela Geller, who runs the blog Atlas Shrugs, the Obama campaign has locked down the store.


Geller first revealed on July 31 that donors from the Gaza strip had contributed $33,000 to the Obama campaign through bulk purchases of T-shirts they had shipped to Gaza.

The online campaign store allows buyers to complete their purchases by making an additional donation to the Obama campaign.


A pair of Palestinian brothers named Hosam and Monir Edwan contributed more than $31,300 to the Obama campaign in October and November 2007, FEC records show.


Their largesse attracted the attention of the FEC almost immediately. In an April 15, 2008, report that examined the Obama campaign’s year-end figures for 2007, the FEC asked that some of these contributions be reassigned.


The Obama camp complied sluggishly, prompting a more detailed admonishment form the FEC on July 30.


The Edwan brothers listed their address as “GA,” as in Georgia, although they entered “Gaza” or “Rafah Refugee camp” as their city of residence on most of the online contribution forms.


According to the Obama campaign, they wrongly identified themselves as U.S. citizens, via a voluntary check-off box at the time the donations were made.


Many of the Edwan brothers’ contributions have been purged from the FEC database, but they still can be found in archived versions available for CRP and other watchdog groups.


The latest Obama campaign filing shows that $891.11 still has not been refunded to the Edwan brothers, despite repeated FEC warnings and campaign claims that all the money was refunded in December.


A Newsmax review of the Obama campaign finance filings found that the FEC had asked for the redesignation or refund of 53,828 donations, totaling just under $30 million.


But none involves the donors who never appear in the Obama campaign reports, which the CRP estimates at nearly half the $426.8 million the Obama campaign has raised to date.


Many of the small donors participated in online “matching” programs, which allows them to hook up with other Obama supporters and eventually share e-mail addresses and blogs.


The Obama Web site described the matching contribution program as similar to a public radio fundraising drive.


“Our goal is to bring 50,000 new donors into our movement by Friday at midnight,” campaign manager David Plouffe e-mailed supporters on Sept. 15. “And if you make your first online donation today, your gift will go twice as far. A previous donor has promised to match every dollar you donate.”


FEC spokesman Biersack said he was unfamiliar with the matching donation drive. But he said that if donations from another donor were going to be reassigned to a new donor, as the campaign suggested, “the two people must agree” to do so.


This type of matching drive probably would be legal as long as the matching donor had not exceeded the $2,300 per-election limit, he said.


Obama campaign spokesman LaBolt said, “We have more than 2.5 million donors overall, hundreds of thousands of which have participated in this program.”


Until now, the names of those donors and where they live have remained anonymous — and the federal watchdog agency in charge of ensuring that the presidential campaigns play by the same rules has no tools to find out.

In June, Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi gave a public speech praising Obama, claiming foreign nationals were donating to his campaign.


“All the people in the Arab and Islamic world and in Africa applauded this man,” the Libyan leader said. “They welcomed him and prayed for him and for his success, and they may have even been involved in legitimate contribution campaigns to enable him to win the American presidency..."


Though Gadhafi asserted that fundraising from Arab and African nations were “legitimate,” the fact is that U.S. federal law bans any foreigner from donating to a U.S. election campaign.

He's got too many secret ties with the Muslim world and that's what scares me. I won't chance it....vic

Obama Served On Board That Funded Pro-Palestinian GroupMore Articles By Aaron KleinAaron Klein
Posted Feb 27 2008
JERUSALEM - Democratic presidential frontrunner Sen. Barack Obama served as a paid director on the board of a nonprofit organization that granted funding to a controversial Arab group that mourns the establishment of Israel as a "catastrophe." (Obama has also reportedly spoken at fundraisers for Palestinians living in what the United Nations terms refugee camps.)

The co-founder of the Arab group, Columbia University professor Rashid Khalidi, is a harsh critic of Israel who reportedly worked on behalf of the Palestine Liberation Organization when it was labeled a terror group by the State Department.

Khalidi held a fundraiser in 2000 for Obama's failed bid for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives.

In 2001, the Woods Fund, a Chicago-based nonprofit that describes itself as a group helping the disadvantaged, provided a $40,000 grant to the Arab American Action Network, or AAAN, at which Khalidi's wife, Mona, serves as president. The Fund provided a second grant to AAAN for $35,000 in 2002.

Obama was a director of the Woods Fund board from 1999 to Dec. 11, 2002, according to the Fund's website. According to tax filings, Obama received compensation of $6,000 per year for his service in 1999 and 2000.

The $40,000 grant from the Woods Fund to AAAN constituted about a fifth of the group's reported grants for 2001, also according to tax filings. The $35,000 Woods Fund grant in 2002 made up about one-fifth of AAAN's reported grants for that year as well.

Headquartered in the heart of Chicago's Palestinian immigrant community, AAAN describes itself as working to "empower Chicago-area Arab immigrants and Arab Americans through the combined strategies of community organizing, advocacy, education and social services, leadership development, and forging productive relationships with other communities."

Speakers at AAAN dinners and events routinely have taken an anti-Israel line. The group co-sponsored a Palestinian art exhibit, titled "The Subject of Palestine," that featured works related to what Palestinians call the "nakba" or "catastrophe" of Israel's founding in 1948.

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The theme of AAAN's Nakba art exhibit, held at DePaul University in 2005, was "the compelling and continuing tragedy of Palestinian life ... under [Israeli] occupation ... home demolition ... statelessness ... bereavement ... martyrdom, and ... the heroic struggle for life, for safety, and for freedom."

Another AAAN initiative, "Al Nakba 1948 As Experienced by Chicago Palestinians," seeks documents related to the "catastrophe" of Israel's founding.

Although AAAN co-founder Rashid Khalidi has at times denied working directly for the PLO, he reportedly served as director of the official PLO press agency WAFA in Beirut from 1976 to 1982, a period during which the PLO committed scores of anti-Western attacks and was labeled by the U.S. as a terror group. Khalidi's wife, Mona Khalidi, reportedly was WAFA's English translator during that period.

Khalidi also advised the Palestinian delegation to the Madrid Conference in 1991. During documented speeches and public events, Khalidi has called Israel an "apartheid system in creation" and a "racist" state. Critics have accused him of excusing Palestinian terrorism, a charge he denies.

He dedicated his 1986 book, Under Siege, to "those who gave their lives ... in defense of the cause of Palestine and independence of Lebanon."

While the Woods Fund's contribution to Khalidi's AAAN might be perceived as a one-time contact with Obama, there is evidence of a deeper relationship between the presidential hopeful and Khalidi.

According to a professor at the University of Chicago who said he has known Obama for 12 years, the senator first befriended Khalidi when the two worked together at the university. The professor spoke on condition of anonymity. Khalidi lectured at the University of Chicago until 2003; Obama taught law there from 1993 until his election to the Senate in 2004.

Asked during a radio interview with this reporter on WABC's John Batchelor program about his 2000 fundraiser for Obama, Khalidi said he "was just doing my duties as a Chicago resident to help my local politician."

Khalidi said he supports Obama for president "because he is the only candidate who has expressed sympathy for the Palestinian cause."

Khalidi also lauded Obama for "saying he supports talks with Iran. If the U.S. can talk with the Soviet Union during the Cold War, there is no reason it can't talk with the Iranians."

Concerning Obama's role in funding AAAN, Khalidi claimed he "never heard of the Woods Fund until it popped up on a bunch of blogs a few months ago." He terminated the interview when pressed further about his links with Obama.

Contacted by phone, Mona Khalidi refused to answer questions about AAAN's involvement with Obama.

The Obama campaign did not reply to a list of questions sent by e-mail to the senator's press office.

In addition to questions about his relationship with Khalidi, Obama may face increased scrutiny over his ties to William C. Ayers, a member of the Weather Underground terrorist group that sought to overthrow the U.S. government and took responsibility for a string of bombings in the early 1970's.

Obama served on the Woods Fund board alongside Ayers (who is still on the board). Ayers, a professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago, has written about his involvement with the Weather Underground's bombing of U.S. governmental buildings including the Capitol in 1971 and the Pentagon in 1972.

Although charges against him were dropped in 1974 due to prosecutorial misconduct, Ayers told a newspaper reporter several years ago that he had no second thoughts about his violent past. "I don't regret setting bombs. I feel we didn't do enough," Ayers told The New York Times in an interview published, ironically, on Sept. 11, 2001.

In his memoir, Fugitive Days, Ayers wrote: "Everything was absolutely ideal on the day I bombed the Pentagon" - though he continued with a disclaimer that he didn't personally set the bombs but his group placed the explosives and planned the attack.

Besides serving with Obama on the board of the Woods Fund, Ayers contributed $200 to Obama's senatorial campaign fund and has served on panels with Obama at several public speaking engagements.


Also the Arab American Action Network gave a large donation to Obama...wake up Sheeple

vic

Sunday, October 05, 2008
Ayers Was on Woods Fund Board with Obama When He Stepped on Flag

Palin Seizes On Obama's Ayers Ties - Washington Post



This from LGF, "Barack Obama was much older than 8 when William Ayers was photographed stepping on a US flag in 2001, for an article in which Ayers said he had “No Regrets” for his violent actions in the Weather Underground.

In fact, at the same time Ayers was in a Chicago alley desecrating the flag, he and Barack Obama were serving on the board of the Woods Fund together: PolitiFact Obama served on board with Ayers.


"Deborah Harrington, president of the Woods Fund, a philanthropic organization in Chicago, said Obama was a director from 1994 through 2001. That overlaps Ayers’ time as a director by three years. It also means Obama served with Ayers for the final months of 2001, after Ayers made his comments to the New York Times."



So exactly what is it that the MSM is saying when they repeat Obama's talking point (........that was like, so.......... long ago), that even though Obama wasn't his pal when he was trying to murder people with bombs in the 60's that 30 years can go by and all is forgiven?

You can be friends with a terrorist as long as a few years have gone by since the last time they murdered anyone?

And whats with calling this guy just a "60's era radical" anyway? Is Osama Bin Laden simply a radical?

Have you ever been friends with someone who tried to murder people unapologetically in their past?

Do you think it would be okay to be?

Well then, well then, I don't think it's okay for a President to be either.
Palin Seizes On Obama's Ayers Ties - Washington Post



This from LGF, "Barack Obama was much older than 8 when William Ayers was photographed stepping on a US flag in 2001, for an article in which Ayers said he had “No Regrets” for his violent actions in the Weather Underground.

In fact, at the same time Ayers was in a Chicago alley desecrating the flag, he and Barack Obama were serving on the board of the Woods Fund together: PolitiFact Obama served on board with Ayers.


"Deborah Harrington, president of the Woods Fund, a philanthropic organization in Chicago, said Obama was a director from 1994 through 2001. That overlaps Ayers’ time as a director by three years. It also means Obama served with Ayers for the final months of 2001, after Ayers made his comments to the New York Times."



So exactly what is it that the MSM is saying when they repeat Obama's talking point (........that was like, so.......... long ago), that even though Obama wasn't his pal when he was trying to murder people with bombs in the 60's that 30 years can go by and all is forgiven?

You can be friends with a terrorist as long as a few years have gone by since the last time they murdered anyone?

And whats with calling this guy just a "60's era radical" anyway? Is Osama Bin Laden simply a radical?

Have you ever been friends with someone who tried to murder people unapologetically in their past?

Do you think it would be okay to be?

Well then, well then, I don't think it's okay for a President to be either.

Thursday, October 02, 2008
FEC wants investigation into Obama's foreign Contributions

Only no one wants to kick the ant hill.

Pretty depressing when regulators charged with regulating a process don't want to "rock the boat."

This from the American Spectator, "An auditor for the Federal Election Commission is attempting to have his bosses seek a formal investigation into the collection by the Obama for President campaign of more than $200 million in potentially illegal political donations, including millions of dollars of illegal, foreign donations, and has sought a request for assistance from the Department of Justice or Federal Bureau of Investigation. But the analyst's requests have largely been ignored. "I can't get anyone to move. I believe we are looking at a hijacking of our political system that makes the Clinton and Gore fundraising scandals pale in comparison. And no one here wants to touch it."One reasons cited by his superiors, says the analyst, is that involvement by the Justice Department or FBI would be indicative of a criminal investigation, something the FEC would prefer not take place a month before the presidential election. Such actions, though, have been used to scuttle Republican campaigns in the past, the most famous being the Weinberger case in the days leading up to the 1992 re-election bid of President George H.W. Bush.The analyst, who declines to be identified for fear of retribution, says that on four different occasions in the past three months, he sought to open formal investigations into the Obama campaign's fundraising techniques, but those investigations have been discouraged. "Without formal approval, I can't get the resources I need, manpower, that kind of thing. This is a huge undertaking." And the analyst says that he believes that campaign finance violations have occurred.The Obama campaign has already had to deal with several FEC complaints about fraudulent donors and illegal foreign contributions, and the FEC says it has no record that those complaints have been resolved or closed. As well, the Obama campaign has been cagey at times about the means by which it has made its historic fundraising hauls, which now total almost $500 million for the election cycle. The Hillary Clinton campaign raised questions about the huge amount of e-retail sales the Obama campaign was making for such things as t-shirts and other campaign paraphernalia, and how such sales were being tracked and used for fundraising purposes. While the profits of those items counted against the $2,300 personal donation limit, there have always been lingering questions about the e-retail system."The question has always been, if you buy a $25 t-shirt and you go back to that purchaser eight or nine times with email appeals for $200 or $500 donations, and you have people donating like that all the time, at what point does the campaign bother to check if the FEC limit has been exceeded?" says a former Clinton campaign fundraiser. "There are enough of us from the 1992 and 1996 and 2000 races around to know that many of these kinds of violations never get caught until after the election has been won or lost. In this case, there is no way the Obama campaign will be held accountable before Election Day, unless someone raises holy hell."The FEC analyst says that Obama's filings indicate he has received large, bundled sums of donations from overseas, sometimes exceeding a quarter millions dollars. "It's suspicious, but it's the small donations made by credit card that need to be examined. We've raised red flags on many of these and the Obama campaign just ignores us. After this election, after we've sifted through everything -- if we're allowed to sift through everything -- I am confident that we are looking at perhaps the largest fine every leveled against a national campaign entity."Just as frustrating as the lack of desire on the part of his bosses to act, says the analyst, is that major media outlets have ignored the story he has been attempting to tell. Thus far, Newsmax is one of the few publications to cover the Obama campaign finance scam story."

Gee, why would the media not want this story?

I mean we hear all day long the excuse that the media would do anything to increase profits, I guess just not at the expense of their messiah.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QxGZ9mc5Rkw

Are you also going to say that Obama didn't have his hand on his heart during the "pledge"?

Or that he doesn't have a flag on his plane?

Keep throwing stuff around Repubs, that's all you've got. False claims.

Be sure to watch the entire video, Palin isn't such a saint. She's a religious extremist who think's the war is God's war. Hahaha to the people who think the world is 5,000 or so years old.

McCain has no education whatsoever, neither does Palin who can't seem to stay in school.

The first article in the mainstream press linking Obama to Ayers appeared in the London Daily Mail on February 2. It was written by Peter Hitchens, the right-wing brother of the left-wing firebrand turned Iraq war supporter, Christopher Hitchens. Hitchens cited the Ayers connection to bolster his argument that Obama is "far more radical than he would like us to know."

The Hitchens piece was followed by a Bloomberg article last week pointing to the Ayers connection as support for Hillary Clinton's contention that Obama might not be able to withstand the "Republican attack machine." Larry Johnson, a former counterterrorism official at the CIA and the State Department, predicted that the Republicans would seize on the Ayers case, and other Chicago relationships, to "bludgeon Obama's presidential aspirations into the dust."

The London Sunday Times joined the chorus this weekend by reporting that Republicans were "out to crush Barack by painting him as a leftwinger with dubious support".

The only hard facts that have come out so far are the $200 contribution by Ayers to the Obama re-election fund, and their joint membership of the eight-person Woods Fund Board. Ayers did not respond to e-mails and telephone calls requesting clarification of the relationship. Obama spokesman Bill Burton noted in a statement that Ayers was a professor of education at the University of Illinois and a former aide to Mayor Richard M. Daley, and continued:

Senator Obama strongly condemns the violent actions of the Weathermen group, as he does all acts of violence. But he was an eight-year-old child when Ayers and the Weathermen were active, and any attempt to connect Obama with events of almost forty years ago is ridiculous.

In the short term, the person who has most to gain by speculation about Obama's acquaintance with a former terrorist is Hillary Clinton. The former First Lady likes to present herself as "tested and vetted" after years of exposure to Republican attacks, in contrast to Obama, a relative newcomer to hardscrabble presidential politics. Such arguments resonate with Johnson, the counterterrorism expert, who told me that he is a Clinton supporter, although not involved with the campaign.

But the Obama-Ayers link is a tenuous one. As Newsday pointed out, Clinton has her own, also tenuous, Weatherman connection. Her husband commuted the sentences of a couple of convicted Weather Underground members, Susan Rosenberg and Linda Sue Evans, shortly before leaving office in January 2001. Which is worse: pardoning a convicted terrorist or accepting a campaign contribution from a former Weatherman who was never convicted?

Whatever his past, Ayers is now a respected member of the Chicago intelligentsia, and still a member of the Woods Fund Board. The president of the Woods Fund, Deborah Harrington, said he had been selected for the board because of his solid academic credentials and "passion for social justice."

"This whole connection is a stretch," Harrington told me. "Barack was very well known in Chicago, and a highly respected legislator. It would be difficult to find people round here who never volunteered or contributed money to one of his campaigns."

Didn't he graduate from the Naval Academy?

Also, "formal" education is overrated, IMO. To me, "on the job" training is every bit as important as a formal education.

Actually he was 894 out of 899 in Naval Academy. Last in his class practically.

I want my president to be smarter than me.

but chose your words a little more carefully. To say "he has no education whatsoever" is completely inaccurate.

Also, "I want my president to be smarter than me." - sounds like your safe either way

He has very little education, none that I deem credible.

He had trouble with math.....

I would not consider McCain an educated man. Maybe knowledgeable in foreign affairs and war stories, but not educated.

And I can guarantee you that if he had trouble in math, then he's not more educated than me. He probably doesn't even know how to operate a computer.

apk sounds like he's fairly intelligible to me here.

He may not be but he is coming back with responses to questions.

If we're going to battle him then let's take off the statfox gloves and battle him with more than a few sentences.

I'm all for Statfox and how awesome it is but I will never back anything just because.

Everyone is my friends on this site but I am not about to back anyone blindly.

I will tail blindly but I will not back blindly.

It sucks really. I have had many a time where I am pinned up. This is why I dislike politics.

It's why I am so used to losing.

When it comes down to a political talk IMO there is no availability of family to cover.

It must be a battle from the heart mano y mano...

I am not a Barackian.

You two are fighting in a way that I dislike totally.

It doesn't matter to me who will become president because things will still be fcked up IMO.

I don't like it anymore than you may...

I just don't like wars is all I have to say and I haven't seen any wars recently that weren't exponentialized by US...

OUR ELECTION =

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=E9VhD4SccSE

John McCain was born in 1936 at Coco Solo Naval Air Station in the Panama Canal Zone, Panama, to naval officer John S. McCain, Jr. (1911–1981) and Roberta (Wright) McCain (b. 1912).[2] At that time, the Panama Canal was under U.S. control.[3]

McCain has Scots-Irish, Anglo-Irish and English ancestry.[4] His father and his paternal grandfather both became four-star United States Navy admirals.[5] His family, including his older sister Sandy and younger brother Joe,[2] followed his father to various naval postings in the United States and the Pacific.[6] Altogether, he attended about 20 schools.[7]

In 1951, the family settled in Northern Virginia, and McCain attended Episcopal High School, a private preparatory boarding school in Alexandria.[8] He excelled at wrestling and graduated in 1954.[9]

Following in the footsteps of his father and grandfather, McCain entered the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis. There, he was a friend and informal leader for many of his classmates,[10] and sometimes stood up for targets of bullying.[5] He also became a lightweight boxer.[11] McCain came into conflict with higher-ranking personnel, he did not always obey the rules, and that contributed to a low class rank (894 of 899) despite a strong intelligence.[10][12] He did well in academic subjects that interested him, such as literature and history, but studied only enough to pass subjects he struggled with, such as mathematics.[5][13] McCain graduated in 1958.[10]

McCains IQ is 133.....

it's only higher than 98.6% of the populace...

the avg. IQ at Harvard is 130..

Obama's is 149...

neither is dumb...

vic

I don't know why I was so heated last night....

Sorry about that Curdawg. We just need someone to change the country for the better, I don't care who it is. The small topics such as abortion, right to bear arms, etc. can wait right now.

I still don't like McCain's policies on other topics such as health care but we can agree to disagree

More Truth and Light should shine on NOBAMA.

Anyone who is not lazy can research the disclosure of politicial contributions and see that NOBAMA has received more than the lion share of expensive contributions from Wall Street firms and individuals within those firms. Far above that of Hitlery Rotten Clinton or Sen. McCain....

What does that say to you?

I'm probably too lazy. Could you please document those "expensive contributions from Wall Street firms and individuals within those firms?"

Curdawg, we love you man. : )

Don't let all this political stuff get to you ok???

We have baskets soon, pure gambling, we have life itself!!!

Ok, we have different concepts of heaven! lol!!!

I see that you Americans, are far more dedicated to it than most Canadians. I would never let political opinion of a man, change my opinion about a man. Ever. : )

Try behave yourself. lol!!!

if you cant even give sen. barack obama enough respect to call him by his name then you should keep your mouth shut around here............no offense. if you want to discuss some issues then lets proceed with a discussion. slander, right wing hate speech, and nonsense conspiracy theories have no place in a political discussion. it makes it impossible to get along well enough to even begin discussing our political views.