Wednesday, August 27, 2008

Obama-Ayers Funnel Funds to Jeremiah Wright and The Arab American Network?



Cross-posted by Maggie at Maggie's Notebook

Media, including Fox News and the AP, reviewed the Annenberg Challenge files released yesterday after reporter Stanley Kurtz suggested a more-than-neighborly connection between Barack Obama and terrorist William Ayers.

An editorial piece at the National Review Online (NRO) brings us up-to-date on the early stages of digging through alleged Obama-Ayers related documents released yesterday to NRO's Stanley Kurtz.

Some highlights from NRO:

1) Obama and Ayers "doled out tens of thousands of dollars to charities, among them, Jeremiah Wright's Trinity United Church of Christ - Obama's church, and the Arab American Action Network:
(co-founded by Rashid Khalidi, a Yasser Arafat apologist who has supported attacks against Israel and now directs Columbia University’s notorious Middle East Institute, founded by Edward Said).
2) Ayers secured a $49.2 million grant for the Annenberg Foundation
...matched two-to-one by public and private contributions — to promote “reform” in the Chicago school system. He quickly brought in Obama, then all of 33 and bereft of any executive experience, to chair the board. With Ayers directing the project’s operational arm and Obama overseeing its financial affairs until 1999, the Chicago Annenberg Challenge distributed more than $100 million to ideological allies with no discernible improvement in public education...
3) Michelle Obama:
...then a dean at the University of Illinois, invited Ayers to participate in a panel with her husband, then a state senator
From the Chicago Chronicle 1997:
Ayers will be joined by Sen. Barack Obama, Senior Lecturer in the Law School, who is working to combat legislation that would put more juvenile offenders into the adult system;...

Michelle Obama, Associate Dean of Student Services and Director of the University Community Service Center, hopes bringing issues like this to campus...
Reporting is mixed on the contents of the documents.

Background:
Why the Obama-Ayers Connection Matters
Obama '08 Urges DOJ to Quash McCain Ad - McCain Comes Back Strong

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