UPDATE (2) “You have thus willfully violated The Free History Project’s intellectual property rights”… UPDATE (1) WITH DOCUMENT DROP…The Unsealed William Ayers/Barack Obama Papers And Why Obama Should Be Worried
UPDATE 2- Anti-Obama Group Steals Copyrighted Images, 
August 25, 2008
VIA FEDERAL EXPRESS
American Issues Project
301 West Platt Street, Suite #353
Tampa, Florida 33606Re: Advertisement Entitled “Know Enough?”
To Whom it May Concern:
Keker & Van Nest represents The Free History Project, which owns the copyright on the documentary film The Weather Underground, directed by Sam Green, co-directed by Bill Siegel, and produced by Carrie Lozano.
It has come to our attention that you have made unauthorized use of material from The Weather Underground in your television advertisement entitled “Know Enough?” (”the advertisement”), directly infringing The Free History Project’s copyright in the film. For instance, without requesting permission to do so, you took footage of William Ayers from The Weather Underground and used it in the advertisement. You have thus willfully violated The Free History Project’s intellectual property rights.
As counsel for The Free History Project, I request that you immediately: (1) remove the advertisement from any television station, cable network, or other media outlet where it is currently running; (2) remove the advertisement from the American Issues Project’s website (www.americanissuesproject.org); (3) cease and desist from any and all further distribution of the advertisement or any other work derived from The Weather Underground; (4) cease and desist from any and all further infringement of The Free History Project’s copyright; and (5) deliver to Keker & Van Nest”or destroy”all copies of the advertisement or any other work derived from The Weather Underground.
These demands are made without waiver of the other remedies available to The Free History Project for your copyright infringement. Please also be aware that we intend to notify television stations and cable providers in Ohio and Michigan (where, we understand, the advertisement is running) of our objection to your use of our copyrighted material.
I look forward to a prompt confirmation that you will cease your infringing conduct immediately. However, if you continue to infringe The Free History Project’s copyright, we will pursue all available legal remedies.
Very truly yours,
JOHN W. KEKER
Download a PDF of the letter. Read their press release.
End Update 2
H/T to On My Soap Box
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UPDATE 1 -Document drop: Turning the tables again on Obama’s speech-squelching thugs
Just obtained the latest counterpunch from American Issues Project, the independent group running the ad about Bill Ayers that the Obama campaign doesn’t want you to see. (Embedded again at the end of this post. Keep passing it around.)
As I’ve pointed out repeatedly over the past few days, Obama’s attempt to bully TV stations airing the ad and stop scrutiny of his radical ties is part and parcel of a larger campaign to chill the free speech of conservative political activists and donors.
AIP sends the same message to the DOJ’s Deputy Assistant Attorney General John Keeney and turns the tables on the Chicago thugs:
Re: Response to August 25, 2008 Letter to DOJ from Obama Presidential Campaign (”Second Letter”)
Dear Mr. Keeney:
Yet again, the Obama for America campaign has sent a letter to you and your office, demanding now that the Department of Justice prosecute one of the donors to American Issues Project, Inc., (”AIP), a non-profit organization which is presently sponsoring advertisements to which the Obama campaign objects.
As stated in my letter sent in response to the Obama campaign’s first letter, AIP has not violated the law, is not violating the law and is taking every possible precaution to assure that it does not violate the law in the future.
The Obama campaign dislikes the content of AIP’s advertising – but is unable to contradict the facts contained in the ad. That is precisely why the ad is presently being broadcast by numerous television stations. It is accurate, documented, and truthful.
The Obama Campaign has specifically called on the Department of Justice to prosecute a donor to AIP, whose contribution was disclosed publicly in accordance with federal law. See 11 C.F.R. §109.10.
Information contained in AIP’s FEC Form 5, filed on August 19, 2006 was attached to the Obama Campaign’s Second Letter to DOJ and information contained in the filing forms the basis for the Obama Campaign’s latest demands of you and the Department.
The Obama Campaign’s request gives rise to a significant legal and constitutional question: that is, whether the Department of Justice would seriously undertake the prosecution of a citizen under pressure from a prominent government official / political candidate, relying on information contained in truthful and accurate government filing, disclosed in accordance with federal law. There are serious Fifth Amendment self-incrimination issues involved in a situation whereby a criminal prosecution could be ordered at will by political pressure on your Department based solely on a timely and accurate federal government disclosure.
AIP has sought and received the voluntary after-tax contributions of donor(s) to support its policy objectives, which happen to differ from those of the Obama Campaign. Rather than addressing the facts contained in the AIP advertisement, it has instead set about to “deal” with AIP through your Department.
This is, however, only the latest in a series of brazen public statements and efforts by liberal Democratic operatives and agents of the Obama Campaign to silence their critics and organizations with whom they disagree, by initiating what they acknowledge is a concerted national effort announced in recent weeks to intimidate, harass and otherwise bully conservative donors.
An organization calling itself “Accountable America” announced two weeks ago its intent to obtain publicly filed disclosures to attempt to coerce donors to conservative causes to stop making contributions and essentially threatening potential donors into not making contributions to conservative groups. Like the Obama Campaign, this group of operatives is using information obtained from legally mandated public disclosures to identify and target for their attack donors to conservative causes.
Of course, should the Department decide to yield to the pressure from the Obama Campaign and undertake its requested ‘investigations’ of donors to politically related conservative causes, the Department would necessarily be required to do so in an even-handed, non partisan and non-ideological approach. In that regard, the Department would be required to review all donors to all causes and political / policy organizations, whose contributions exceed $5,000 per calendar year to any such causes, the vast majority of which are donors to liberal causes, not conservative ones.
Based on calculations from the Center for Responsive Politics (www.crp.org ) the following are leftwing donors whose substantial contributions to political causes in the last three election cycles have consistently landed each of them on the top donors list and surely each of these donors warrant the Department’s review, scrutiny and prosecution, if the Obama Campaign standard is to be applied evenly:
George Soros:
2004: $23,450,000
2006: $ 3,542,500
2008 (to date) $ 4,650,000
Steven Bing:
2004: $13,852,031
2008 (to date) $ 4,850,000
Peter Lewis:
2004: $22,997,220
2006: $ 1, 624,375
2008 (to date) $ 850,000
Herb and Marion Sandler:
2004: $13, 008, 459
Linda Pritzker:
2004: $3,300,000
2006: $2,101,000
John Hunting:
2006: $1,647,000
2008 (to date) $1,243,000
Alida Messinger
2004: $ 3,580,200
2006: $ 1,042,000
2008 (to date) $ 883,000
Pat Stryker:
2006: $ 1,331,293
2008 (to date): $ 300,000
Jon Stryker:
2006: $ 1,271,313
2008: $ 604,054
The list is quite lengthy and this is but a partial list of those the Department would be obligated to pursue if it bows to the demands of the Obama Campaign to undertake investigations of wealthy donors making large contributions to political causes. The Obama Campaign should be aware that most of the donors on the list are individuals who consistently support left-wing, liberal and Democratic causes. And most of the donors listed above have made public statements regarding their intent to use their wealth to impact the outcome of federal elections should the Department need further evidence of their activities.
The letters from the Obama Campaign to you and your Department are a gross misuse of the power and prestige of that organization. However, because of the environment in which we function, it is important that AIP respond to the ongoing baseless allegations in the letter war now being waged against it by the Obama Campaign.
AIP has violated no provision of law. The donor(s) to AIP have violated no provision of law. However, if the Department of Justice decides to initiate investigations of donors to AIP and other conservative political and policy organizations, as well as the activities of citizens groups such as AIP, we will be prepared to counter such efforts with our list of targets and entities with which we disagree politically and philosophically for the Department to also investigate and prosecute.
Please contact me if you have any questions.
Sincerely,
Cleta Mitchell
Cleta Mitchell, Esq.
Counsel, American Issues Project
End update 1
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As soon as I am able to get my hands on hard copies of the findings, I will be posting them. Â Until I can get you the “good stuff”, read this article to get your blood pressure up: William Ayers 2004: Blowing stuff up not a big deal
As I was watching FOX News last evening, Stanley Kurtz, of NRO , was being interviewed on the preliminary findings from the documents being unsealed. (Read the back story here. ) There is a reason that this is labeled The William Ayers ad that Barack Obama does not want you to see!. From what Kurtz said, the initial findings show a strong relationship between Ayers and Obama, as well as a failed program that both worked on. Read Bullying You Can Believe In: Obama threatens TV stations airing Ayers ad
bama Sued in Philadelphia Federal Court on Grounds he is Constitutionally Ineligible for the Presidency, and then ask yourself how Obama could think that we wouldn’t be able to get our hands on the truth.
Obama’s Friend, America’s Enemy
Obama apologists dismiss all this as “guilt by association” based on a single joint appearance. But it was far from the only one. In fact, by 1997 Obama and Ayers were collaborators on a far more significant level. They sat together for several years on the board of the Woods Fund, a left-wing Chicago charitable organization. There, they doled out tens of thousands of dollars to such beneficiaries as the Trinity Church (where Obama was a longtime member and where another Obama mentor, Jeremiah Wright, preached a radical, anti-American brand of Black Liberation Theology) 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).
Even more intriguing, in 1995 Ayers won a $49.2 million grant from 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. Until this week, moreover, the University of Illinois at Chicago, where Ayers works, was blocking access to the project’s files (examination of which was being sought by frequent NR contributor Stanley Kurtz), until finally relenting under public pressure. Less than three months from Election Day, analysis of the records from Barack Obama’s only significant executive experience is just beginning.
The mainstream media has been derelict on the Obama/Ayers relationship. Perhaps now, finally, it will get the scrutiny it deserves.
Michelle Malkin has more here
Others blogging this:
- Swamp Hermit’s *QUICK* Bits « The Swamp Hermit’s Report
- Obama’s Ayers problem deepens « Thoughts Of A Conservative Christian
- A Blog For All
- A Different “9/11 Truth” « I Took The Red Pill (and escaped the Matrix)
August 27, 2008 - 08:50 AM on August 27th, 2008
OBAMA . . . YOU CAN RUN . . . YES YOU CAN. . . BUT YOU CAN’T HIDE. This crime will chase you down, and you will have to step down, go to jail and not collect $200.00.
Too greedy, wanting it all, wanting it now, coveting wealth that is not yours. We had a guy that did that in taking peoples money for investment purposes & embezzled the money for over 20 years. He worked for a very well known investment firm, needless to say when he got found out,(HE WAS TO BE ARRESTED THAT DAY). . . the man blew his brains out. The amount so far he stole added up to over 14 million and COUNTING. . . (just recently found more) Small potatoes to 49 million plus that is in question as to where the money went? Obama knows which is a good reason for YOU to blow your head off, if found out. Ayers won’t give a damn, but I say Obama will care greatly. PRIDE WILL DO OBAMA IN.
It’s a patten these guys follow, they seem so nice on the outside, but their heart is cold as stone, (only when it comes to others) but when it comes to them, it’s quite a different story.
This man was thought of so highly, appeared to love his wife and young sons, belonged to a big church, was very well known. (it’s been over a year since this happened) He was a ‘big giver’ of money. Guess so, it wasn’t his money he was giving. So we’ll see how this effects Obama. He will be found out, and when the Government FBI shows up at his door, because taxes were not paid on this embezzled money, now that changes - THE BIG PICTURE.
To say the least, the devil is in the details! Obama cannot be handling the United States government funds! If the foundation failed - America is next to fail under OBAMA’S LEADERSHIP. . . NO WAY - NO HOW - NO OBAMA!
August 27, 2008 - 11:53 AM on August 27th, 2008
[...] TWO: Read the American Issues Project’s response pointing out that if the DOJ investigates conservative groups and their donors, as Obama’s [...]
August 27, 2008 - 12:48 PM on August 27th, 2008
The point of going through these documents was to see how Obama did at an executive level, and obviously, we see that it did not go so well. It also disproves his excuse that Ayers is a guy that lives in his neighborhood and they didn’t ever have discusssions etc. Obviously Obama wasn’t 8 years old when he served on this board with Ayers.
August 27, 2008 - 01:28 PM on August 27th, 2008
I just wrote President White appealing for safe release of the records that the public had rights to for the sake of our country. I also e-mailed this to all my friends.
Like I said your secret is safe with me and all my friends.
I have no intention for Obama to be President - my work here is done for today.
I could care less about the Clinton’s, and the rest of the crazies at the convention, all of them are partners in crime. Hillary is a bigger liar than Obama if that is even possible. Hell-oooooooooooooo! Sick, Sick, Sick mean ruthless people.
August 27, 2008 - 02:09 PM on August 27th, 2008
Got an e-mail from President White and he released the papers yesterday @ 10 o’clock! You probably know this, you stay ahead of me. I’m not jealous, you go RightVoices we are all in this together to WIN AND OBAMA LOSE.
Like the new site but having trouble with Gravatar?? Later, I have a meeting tonight so got to go.
August 27, 2008 - 03:41 PM on August 27th, 2008
Gravatar needs to work on their cropping utility, imo.
August 27, 2008 - 03:48 PM on August 27th, 2008
They need work, period. First I didn’t show up, then I did and now I don’t!
I guess I got what I paid for
August 27, 2008 - 04:14 PM on August 27th, 2008
Until then, I guess we’ll just have to assume you look like a game token!
October 5, 2008 - 02:09 PM on October 5th, 2008
[...] UPDATE (2) “You have thus willfully violated The Free History Project’s intellectual property ri… Sorry: as the AoSHQ notes, it’s National Review, not “The” National Review. A little point, but then this is a post about inaccuracy in reporting. As above, so below - if you’ll forgive me for going all Hermetic over it. [...]