Bill Ayers Calls Attempt To Have Him Fired 'Absurd'

Calling a state senator's push to get him axed from his public university job "frivolous," William Ayers on Thursday said lawmakers have more important things to do than to go after him.

Ayers, a former member of the radical Weather Underground and a topic of heated discussion during the 2008 presidential and primary campaigns, was responding to a Downstate Republican's proposal to forbid a public university from employing someone who has "committed a violent act" against the United States or Illinois.

Read the whole story here.

Comments

[randyjet]

Maybe third time posting will be the one that works. 1dogs2 like to spin lies. The FACT is that Dohrn plead GUILTY to aggravated assault which according to wikipedia is a FELONY. That is a conviction and it makes NO difference what the punishment is. So far I have NOT been able to "spew" my opinion since the moderator has refused to allow it to be posted for most of my posts. While I was wrong about the course she teaches, the poster ignores the FAR more serious facts that the Weathermen tried to kill people, such as bombing Ft. Dix which literally blew up in their face and bombing a judge and his family.

The lives of Ayers and Dohrn reminds me of the Pirates of Penzance in which at the end the pirates are revealed to be the sons of noblemen, and all is forgiven, and they retake their rightful place in society. After being underground and living like the rest of us, they worried that they and their kids would miss out on the finer things their station in life entitled them to. That is why I still dislike Ayers. He seeks to avoid the consequences of his actions and thinks it unfair that he pay any price for them. Unlike the REST of us who DO have to do so.

[coco51]

Aren't there more pressing issues, say the economy, poverty, crime, healthcare for Bomke to address. But then maybe, just maybe those are much too challenging for that meathead to tackle. I mean, writing such a bill would probably take two hours tops using LexisNexis?
The people of Chicago needs to demand that Bomke reimburse them their money for the hours this idiot puts into writing this nonsense.

[kassandranobody]

how about firing WOO for trying to change the constitution?

[BushBites]

He looks like Johnny Rotten.

[AmbivalentGuy]

Jerk, non-jerk doesn't matter.

You can't enforce an ex post facto law like this,
in a situation like this.

Besides, by some standards, most of our
state legislators have "harmed" Illinois.

[joy316]

Wow! I'm not surprised. They feel very empowered after quickly ousting Blago for standing up against the Bank of America. Next, they will open the concentration camps for anyone who disagrees with anything Rush, Sean, etc. speaks.

[some-realtalk]

I am so sick of this man, and news about him --- BYE!!

[sasson]

I wonder if he and Harrison Ford ever get together and discuss how cool their ear rings look?

[JakeMontero]

ANY one who knows him will tell you Ayers is a JERK. w/ that said, leave him alone. :truth:

[MaryOK]

My neighbors say they know him and said he is a sweet man. As an Illinois taxpayer, I prefer that he work at some private institution. The pensions for state employees are overly generous. He just isn't someone I want to pay 80% of his sallary for the rest of his life.

[randyjet]

As a long time radical liberal, I am all in favor of getting rid of Ayers since from what I have read of his past performance as an educator and looking at what he has written, he is not much of a professor. I am also pissed off at his statements that he was fighting against the Vietnam war. That is an outright lie. He was engaged in activities that Nixon LOVED, since Ayers fought AGAINST us in the anti-war movement. He never did a thing to mobilize or promote the anti-war movement. IN fact, he was its enemy. So I can care LESS about the welfare of a spoiled rich brat who did his own thing and abstained from the anti-war movement.

For those who want the real story of the anti-war movement and how it succeeded, and its real effects, I refer you to OUT NOW by Fred Halstead who was a REAL leader of it. It is an excellent read.

[BushBites]

Agree.

People like Ayers were so obnoixous that they gave Nixon the support to keep going.

Not to mention giving him political support to start a police state.

[pros54]

The rethugs trying to find a focus by creating a witch hunt.

[1dogs2]

This, of course, is precisely the purpose of tenure -- to protect professors from witch hunts.

[randyjet]

Tenure will not protect Ayers in this case if the bill passes. In any case, Ayers is very wealthy in his own right, and it would be nice if a poor working class prof got his job. He had to come out of hiding to collect on his inheritance. That is why he did it. His wife should be fired from Northwestern since she has actually been convicted of a felony crime and has done prison time. She is cannot join the state bar anywhere, so she is a prof of legal ethics! I think that is a little absurd, unless they want to let future lawyers know how to act in prison since that is where many of them wind up Or maybe they try what the state does in the Scared Straight Program for young offenders. Her course could be entitled Scared Ethical!.

[1dogs2]

Well, free speech is a wonderful thing. It allows you to spew your ignorance in public. Bernadine Dohrn has not "actually been convicted of a felony crime," but pled guilty to charges for which she received probation. The only time she spent in jail was a year for refusing to testify against a friend. She teaches, not legal ethics, but courses on the juvenile justice system, and she has for many years championed children's and human rights causes. It's too bad that a "radical liberal" of the Vietnam era would allow 40+ year internecine animosities to tell lies about a man's wife. That doesn't seem ethical to me.

[4Q-N4Q2]

Hey Billy Guilty as Sin, Free as a Bird.

You'd better have a talk with Ward Churchill.

[walk0nwalls]

Yeah this is pretty horsecrap.

I mean fire him if he's a poor professor, not because of his past existence.

[tedbear]

Wow, what a shock that Fox News would get involved in discrediting someone who sat on a board of people doing good things. Those who lived through the Vietnam debacle know what was happening then and Ayres was one of many who wanted to stop the insanity of it.

Fox News is only watched by people with no idea of what is really going on in the world. If these people knew what was happening, they wouldn't be watching Fox News and its ignorant opinions and manipulations of people who don't know any better. Its all about money and those with it keeping it, but I'll bet alot of people watching Fox aren't wealthy, they are easily lead.