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Obama’s most questionable tie is to a leftist organization called ACORN. His connection to this group begins with a woman named Madeleine Talbot. She embraced Obama and taught him the ropes. He remained a part of this group’s training cadre. Obama taught leadership conferences for the group while working for Miner, Barnhill & Galland. His connections don’t end there. Obama actively sought and received the endorsement by ACORN for his local campaigns. He has now done the same in his bid for the USA presidency.
According to its web site ACORN (an acronym for Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now), is the nation’s largest community organization of low- and moderate-income families, working together for social justice and stronger communities. At first glance, this organization seems to be benign. This is not true since it uses very aggressive tactics to get its work done.
Some recent reports about their activities include the following things. They have disrupted and blocked activities within the Chicago City Council during living wage discussions. In Baltimore, MD, they burst into the scene of a private law dinner. They bussed four loads of protesters to the site of a mayor’s house, where they spewed profanities at the mayor and his family. And these are just the ones we know about. Their thuggery is over the line by far.
These are not their only questionable actions. In the past they have been tied to illegal voter registration in at least three states. These three states are Washington, Missouri, and North Carolina.
In Missouri, the voter fraud case was tied to at least one campaign, the senate campaign of Claire McCaskill.
In 2004, the Washington state Secretary of State described ACORN’s illegal activity as the “largest case of voter fraud in the state’s history.
They were fined $25,000 and promised to instruct their paid canvassers on the state election requirements. In 2005, according to the complaint filed with Mecklenberg County, North Carolina, the voter fraud involved the registration of homeless people. ACORN agrees they break the law but said “no one told us. In 2006, in Kansas City, MO, five low-level operatives were charged with voter fraud. Four pleaded guilty, with the fifth person released because it came out that an ACORN worker had stolen her identity.
This is just the first layer of radicalism. According to Sol Stern’s 2003 City Journal article, “ACORN’s Nutty Regime for Cities, this group is the key modern successor of the 1960 ’s “New Left with a 1960’s-bred agenda of anti-capitalism to match. While ACORN still uses the old tactics of the National Welfare Reform Organization to get things done, the targets and strategy have changed. They prefer to fly under the radar, taken their tactics to liberal urban areas like Chicago and now here in Kansas. Their national goals are municipal “living wage laws, targeting big companies like Costco, rolling back welfare reform, and regulating banks.
ACORN drives companies like Costco from urban areas that actually need jobs. Their opposition to welfare reform tends to keep the people in poverty in these areas, while causing family breakdown. The worst of their tactics is the regulation of banks. They protest “predatory lending, putting pressure on banks to make large donations to them to finance their “non-partisan motor voter drives. Stern says that these tactics tend to be “undisguised authoritarian socialism.
Don’t let its tactics fool you though. According to Kurtz, “ACORN is a savvy and exceedingly effective player. They prefer to take over the system from within rather than overthrowing the system from without. Stern calls this a political version of the Invasion of the Body Snatchers. In Chicago, where the largest organization exists, an ACORN member won a seat on the Board of Alderman as candidate of the leftist New Party.
Obama in his pre-law days was a community organizer. He was supposed to teach the residents to press for improvements in places like their parks which were eyesores back in his day. Part of Obama’s employment was to organize demonstrations, much in the same way groups like ACORN do. Some of Obama’s claims, in his book Dreams from My Father, about his actions to remove asbestos are false. It was actually a woman named Hazel Johnson who discovered the asbestos problem and who led the removal efforts.
Once again, Madeleine Talbot, Obama’s ACORN mentor, reappears on our radar screens. It turns out Talbot was in some sense responsible for the attempted unsuccessful coup of the Chicago City Council meeting on the living wage issue in 1997. Two hundred ACORN supporters were present. While the actions did disrupt the meeting, six members were arrested that night, charged with “mob action and disorderly conduct. Among those six was Talbot, Obama’s ACORN mentor.
Does it mean Obama used these tactics? I highly doubt it since he would have been above those tactics in order to protect his political future. He wouldn’t have wanted to break the law with such aggressive behavior. I do believe by this time Obama was well aware of their tactics and understood them, maybe even teaching them in his leadership conferences.
It seems that in reality that Obama is ACORN’s way to overthrow the system from the inside. This jives with his words such as “I am for hope and change, I am for a new Washington, D.C. While Axelrod coined the term “Hope and Change, ACORN is fully behind Obama’s opportunity to overthrow our government, if you will, from the inside. They are not alone in their quest for this because it seems that the Service Employee’s International Union is one of ACORN’s strange bedfellows.
The extent of his ties is often dismissed. They are however covered in another article found in the journal Social Policy entitled “Case Study: Chicago - The Barack Obama Campaign by Tom Foulkes. In this article, Foulkes claims that ACORN specifically sought out Obama’s representation in the “motor voter case, remembering him from his pre-law days and his work with Talbot. He also trained many of the new volunteers and employees in Leadership Training Conferences even as he was working as a law professional.
This is only the beginning of his continued use and cooperation on the part of ACORN. Obama used them as volunteer “thugs for his first bid for the Illinois state senate in 1996 and again in his failed 2000 bid for Congress. Obama doesn’t forget his old friends, many of his newly trained volunteers, and used them again in his 2004 successful bid for the United States Senate. By this time ACORN and Obama were like old friends.
ACORN as well as other groups were the recipients of foundation money from both the Woods Fund and Joyce Foundation. Why is this important? Obama sat on both boards. Through his board positions, he was able to assist in the funneling of many millions of dollars in grant money to various ultra-liberal organizations like Chicago’s ACORN. It may not be illegal but it gives me pause.
It would be illegal for Obama to funnel money to his main “get out the vote volunteers in his position on those boards. So it would seem, at least on the exterior, that ACORN probably did observe the “rule of law in its non-partisan efforts. It claims that its get-out-the-vote drives are segregated from its political arm. I am certain that much grant money has been received from these two foundations. And I am left with a nagging question. Where does ACORN get the money for its never-empty war chest? Could it be they receive funding from someone like George Soros, who has poured millions into presidential campaigns like Obama and even Howard Dean, according to a blog piece at No Quarter, “Hitler and the New Democratic Party.
According to Kurtz in his NRO article, while these questions about funding and partisanship are important, what is more troubling are Obama’s ties to ACORN, “arguably the most politically, radical, large-scale activist group in this country. ACORN sneaked its first political insider on the Board of Alderman in Chicago as a “New Party candidate elected to that board. As ACORN has managed to sneak its operatives within the system legally through elections, one would think that Obama is able to do the same. Why do we know this? Because Obama has trained many of their current leaders.
The LA Times returned to that same Chicago neighborhood where Obama worked as a community organizer to take a look at the same neighborhood. What they found was a real disappointment. They found one of those parks that Obama “helped restore to its natural beauty is now overrun by drug dealers and thugs again. It seems nothing changed for very long in the old Obama stomping grounds.
The best finish to this article is Stanley Kurtz’s own words. “The community organizer may generate feel-good moments and best selling books, but I suspect that a Costco as the seed bed of a larger shopping complex would have done far more to save the neighborhood where Obama worked to organize in the progressive fashion. Unfortunately, Chicago ACORN is blocking that effort.
Latest Activity: Oct 11, 2008 at 4:03 PM
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I have a lot of reading to catch up on since. I heard this being discussed and Axelrod assuring the people that they never know if the ones registering are democrat or republican. I hope the repulicans will just let the law handle this and not make a fuss over something that is not true.
Thank you for convincing me that indeed Obama is the man for president. Imagine, somebody actually caring about poor people. This article completely fails to prove that ACORN is an evil organization. In fact it has turned me into an ACORN fan. There are some people on this blog that are going to be in for some miserable eight years when Obama wins, yet I bet not one of you will turn down the tax cut Obama is promising.
Obama's ties to ACORN are true, and they are just as sorry as some say they are. Those they are registering are going to vote Dem, if they vote!
ACORN is another example of how questionable Obama's judgement is when it comes to who he associates with. He will befriend anyone who can improve his career, regaurdless of who thet are, what they have done, or what they believe.
One man said there are at least 75 different branches of ACORN. He described them as tenacles. Obama was involved with the group that was suppose to help with education of disadvantaged. There was no improvement is test scores. There is tax funding. One Congressman is striving to stop that funding.
And in case you haven't figured it out I'm a die hard democrat that believes in bigger government to protect the poor and taxing the hell out of the rich and big corporations to pay for it. There was a time I believed more libertarian values, but I got tired of seeing the poor get walked upon. I believe in socialist values and as far as I'm concerned Obama is a light weight. He doesn't go nearly far enough to bring my socialist dreams true. And you know what is wonderful about this country? My vote counts just as much as yours.
PROMISES PROMISES PROMISES. See how many bills you can pay with those promises Obama is making. Low income people pay little or no taxes now. Plus they receive unearned credit when they file taxes. That's another 5 to 6 thousand bucks of tax payers money they receive FREE. They get back way more than they have paid in for entire year. This is in the $25,000 to $35,000 tax bracket.
You are right, Kctschida, your vote does count, and if you get hooked up with ACORN all 9 of your votes will count. What a wonderful country we live in. The corrupt always win.
Ahh Socialism. Look at the healthcare systems of Canada, The brits, and Cuba!(not Moores lieing film, Cuba's real system)
Socialism doesn't look to good whan you see it in action. Actually doesn't sound too good to logical people! In the end Socialism is also corrupt and does more harm to the poor than Capitolism.
That's true, socialism does corrupt, that's why I would never move to a socialist country, but that doesn't stop me from dreaming about living in a country where the poor are treated as well as the rich.
According to the ACORN website, they do have a program for better schools. This is what they post about the Chicago program that CBwill described:
In Chicago, ACORN fought to get certified teachers in every classroom. In order to curb youth related crime, our members organized an anti-violence rally in which more than 100 members participated. As a result, city officials awarded $12 million to ACORN to put toward new after-school and weekend programs.
(see ACORN.org)
Regarding the test scores, Chicago Public Schools' website states:
To every student, teacher, principal and administrator, staff member, parent, taxpayer, elected official, LSC/community leader, AIO and advocate of public education:
Thanks to your hard work and determination, the Chicago Public Schools is on a roll. In recent weeks, we have celebrated a number of impressive achievements:
Elementary test scores hit an all time high with more than 65% of students meeting or exceeding state standards – our seventh consecutive gain.
Over the past five years, our high school students have gained twice as much as the state and three times as much as the nation on the ACT test.
Over the past five years, the number of CPS high school students taking advanced placement classes has more than doubled.
The graduating class of 2008 received a record $157 million in competitive college scholarships.
The number of teacher vacancies at the start of the school year hit an all-time low of 3%.
All time high first-day attendance of more than 93%.
A record 34 new school openings.
Today, Chicago has better schools, better-prepared principals, teachers and students all working hard and working together toward a common goal: to be the premier urban school system in America. The results demonstrate that our core strategies – challenging and better supported mathematics, science and literacy curricula, dedicated and better trained teachers and principals, and more learning opportunities in the afternoons, summers and weekends – are all paying off.
There is more work to be done, but we are off to a great start. We just want to congratulate you for your remarkable accomplishments and thank you for your hard work. You have proven beyond a doubt - to the world and to yourselves – that you can be and you will be successful. You have made Chicago proud. We are especially proud to be working alongside people who care so deeply about education and who always go the extra mile to help every child and every school succeed. Thank you for your extraordinary commitment to making a difference in the lives of children.
Sincerely,
Arne Duncan
Chief Executive Officer Barbara Eason-Watkins
Chief Education Officer
(See CPS.edu)
I prefer to go to sources when I state "facts." CBWill, do you have sources that corroborate your statements?
I don't think anyone on here is rich. What do you consider rich? I live on less than $30,000 a year. Most people in that bracket pay no taxes. So what is the big deal about Obama lowering taxes? Do you actually think not lowering for $250,000 and over will generate more taxes? I think not. It will only generate more loop-holes.
No, I just repeat what I hear on TV. If your source is accurate, then that is impressive. Do you think there may be a chance the test scores were doctored to continue receiving funding? There is so much corruption in all branches of govt. that anything is possible.
You mean dreaming of a country where lazy people can just sit on there cans and be cared for like those who are doing something. NO THANKS!! There is nothing good about Socialism!
Kctschida, I believe there are people who have to dig the ditches and people who get to push the pin. It would be great if everyone made millions each year. How much do you pay the trash pick up man, what about the guy who bags your groceries. What we must realize is that we must have people making minimum wage, because there are untrained and uneducated people who have to make a living also. I just can't stand the people who want to live off the government, (which are really ME and all the other tax payers). Are you one? Explain you comment about the poor being treated the same as the rich. By who, I challenge you to take a poor person out to eat tomorrow, buy them some cloths, or let them live with you until they can do better. What do you do for the poor? There are a lot of really good people in the world, doing a lot of really good things, you just may not know about them.
Great comment, Petunia. My late husband and I are both in the un-educated group. I can honestly say that the only hand-out my family took was free school lunch for my son the year my husband retired from military. We had just moved back home and neither of us had found jobs. No one should expect tax payers to be their sole means of income. I guess you could call me very impatient. I'd much rather get out and look for a job than sit in an office and fill out forms in hopes of getting a hand out. Ocassionally, we may need a help up, but don't let it turn into a lifetime career.
Oh, by the way, I guess I was one of the ditch diggers. My last job of 27 years was in textile industry. Very physical, manual labor. I worked the midnight shift. 12-8 Best shift there is. I could have gone to 1st many times but I chose to remain on grave-yard shift.
I believe Obama's tax cuts will be just like the ones Clinton promised during his campaign. He actually raised taxs on those he promised cuts to!
The only ones who wan't the gate way to Communism (Socialism) as an economic system are those who want to sit home and let someone else make things work!
pukamama, you make me sick. You are the kind of people that live off others. I work my ass off and I be damn if I want to give you any of that. Get out and work. Every day I try to find people to just work in my businesses and all I get is, "What you gonna pay me". Can you pay me in cash so it won't affect my check. I am sick of this. If I have to pay taxes and don't get a damn check, so should you. I am ------tired of working for people like you.
That post probably should have been to ktchchida. Work like my dad, myself, and my kinds now after me and then let me hear you whine.
I have found something very interesting in trying to do research. Several times I have googled something to do with Obama and ACORN, and the page would come up blank and have "flaged for removal" on it. I have found no such page for McCain. Someone please correct me if I am wrong. Why would pages have to be removed on Obama? Could it be something the public should know?
To my fellow working citizen - Lakerat,
I do work. I have been working almost every day of my adult life. Although, I was out of work for a while, I did not take any hand-outs. I do not need your tax funds but there are others who do. I came from a very poor family - at one point (for 5 years), we lived in the back of a camper in a trailer park. You seem to be the type of person who would call me trailer-trash. That's okay because everyone has an opinion and thank goodness that we live in a country where we can.
I did not get sent to school and then fall into a managerial position. I worked my way up. I have been on an assembly line and I have worked in an office. In order to move up, I went to college in the evenings while working full-time and taking care of a family.
So bullochguy, I applaud you for your work ethic. I am proud to stand by you as part of the working many. What you do not seem to realize is that most people on "welfare" are aged or disabled. Most states make able-bodied recipients work for their "hand-out" and once they do finally get a job, many are also required to pay back those funds.
I applaud you, pucamom. I admire anyone that overcame adversities in their life and moved forward. You are an inspiration to all who wish to get ahead in life. It can be done. You just have to want to. Thank you achieving your goal. Best of luck with your future life.
I have to make this other comment. I am all for helping the aged and handicaped. If you call 68 aged, then I fall into that category, but as yet am not handicapped. I consider myself very fortunate to have enough income to survive without any help. I even think we should help young people that fall down on their luck, through no fault of their own, be it sickness, injury, or loss of job. Each case should be looked at seperately. As long as someone is making an effort to better themselves, then I say help them, but monitor them to be sure they are honest in their efforts.
Pucamom, I don't believe anyone is against helping those who truly need it, except for the Libertarians! What Liberals, especially far-left type, seem to promote is that all those who don't have much are victims. That is just not the case. Take a walk around Statesboro, most of those drawing Government checks are just as abled bodied as me and everyone else, some even more so to do the blue collar job I do.
Truth is, we have created an "entitlement society" that believes the Government is solely responsible for caring for them. Liberal view points expand this problem.
Is you are elderly, handicapped, or otherwise unable to work, I believe the tax payers should foot the bill.
Jesus said "take care of my Widows and Orphans". There wasn't a word on bums!
All poor people are not victims! Some are just sorry, and do not deserve my tax dollars. If that is the case then why should anyone work? Lets all quite our jobs and live off the Governments dollar. Ohh yeah, then there would be no Government programs.
So how do you determine who has to work and who sits on the porch and drinks beer all day?
Bullochguy- How do you know they are drawing government checks? Do you go up and ask them? Do you ask them about what their disabilities are? What is your basis for these accusations?
Kctschida, do you mean to tell me that you know of no one that is receiving govt. assistance that is not entitled to it? I find that hard to believe. I can name several right in my family.
Grew up watching it my man. Saw loads of kids growing up who's prents drew checks and taught them how to do it.
You can watch them and tell if they are able to work or not. My basis for these acusations are fact my friend, thats a litle more than can be said for the balance of accusations made by the far-left.
CB, Liberals know about all this, it just waters down there poor arguments.
Pucamom... most people on welfare are not disabled or elderly. I don't know where you got that stat from, but it's incorrect.
Welfare is an issue I began researching six years ago. My research was sparked when I began to learn about many, many young black girls whose families were pressuring them into getting pregnant on purpose so the family could gain more welfare money. It broke my heart because so many of these girls were bright young ladies with a future ahead of them. Several of them were devastated by their families commands, and spoke with several of us in confidence trying to find a way out.
kctschida... You talked about living in a country where the poor get treated as well as the rich. Treated how? We now live in a country that gives more benefits, more handouts, and more opportunities to low income and minorities than ever in history.
I just posted a blog last week that talked about education being the key. ANYONE can be successful in life. They only need to focus on their education, and their destiny can be in their hands. But people (many) don't do that anymore. They'd rather have someone give them everything than work for it.
There is way too much I don't know about Obama to EVER vote for him. And way too much of what I'm learning about him does not give me any sense of security for the people of this country. There's way too much money being thrown around by him to different large corps (even though he says he doesn't agree with that sort of thing) and I do not have a good feeling about the fact that he says one thing and six months later he says he never said it! And we're worried about McCain's age?
Oh... CB... the internet posts are being pulled down by the Obama people. They have tentacles everywhere. Go ahead... vote for whoever you want to. There is a LOT here to be concerned about.
Here is a list of nations and how much of their GDP they spend on welfare. Notice we are near the bottom, and this list doesn't include Middle Eastern nations that pay their citizens a percentage of their oil profits. I think this list proves that America is far from the country with the greatest handouts in history. Maybe nest time you will do a little research on wikipedia before you blog.
Nation Welfare expenditure
(% of GDP)
omitting education
Denmark 29.2
Sweden 28.9
France 28.5
Germany 27.4
Belgium 27.2
Switzerland 26.4
Austria 26.0
Finland 24.8
Netherlands 24.3
Italy 24.4
Greece 24.3
Norway 23.9
Poland 23.0
United Kingdom 21.8
Portugal 21.1
Luxembourg 20.8
Czech Republic 20.1
Hungary 20.1
Iceland 19.8
Spain 19.6
New Zealand 18.5
Australia 18.0
Slovak Republic 17.9
Canada 17.8
Japan 16.9
United States 14.8
Ireland 13.8
Mexico 11.8
South Korea 6.1
SusanS - Thanks for allowing me to clarify. I am perhaps using "welfare" in too broad of a category. In the state of Georgia, we have people who are receiving Supplemental Security Income(SSI)payments and then we also have people who are receiving Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) and Separate State Programs - Maintenance of Effort (SSP-MOE.)
Statistics for SSI payment recipients:
Total recipients, Georgia 208,247
Aged
26,136
"Blind and disabled"
182,111
Now regarding Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) and Separate State Programs - Maintenance of Effort (SSP-MOE) also known as "welfare."
The number of Georgia families on welfare has decreased since 1993. In January 1993, there were 142,040 families on welfare. In June 2003, there were 55,234 families. That is a decrease of 61 percent, and is slightly higher than the 59 percent decrease in the national average over the same period. As of March of 2008, there were 39,048 TANF and SSP-MOE recipients (22,050 families.)
Source: The Administration for Families and Children, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
So the statistics look like this:
Type, No. of recipients, % of Georgia population
Aged, 26,136, 0.279%
Disabled, 182,111, 1.945%
TANF/SSP-MOE, 39,048, 0.417%
Now, in reference to the young people that you have spoken with and worked with - that is a terrible situation to be placed in and I agree with you that it is heart-breaking. I, too, believe that education is the most important thing that will break the cycle. There are often other factors that play into people being able to (or not able to) get a good education. I agree that there are people who need to learn that this country has many opportunities for those who want to work for them and that many people feel entitled.
I, however, think that Barack Obama will point this country in a better direction than McCain. Again, what a wonderful country that we live in. I am so pleased that we can find a forum where we both can share our opinions.
Thanks again, SusanS, I appreciate your opinion.
Exactly how will someone who wants a health care system that is pr oven to be a failure, who has no executive experience, has shown terrible judgment in friends and advisor's, lied about most of those issues, and refused to be asked tough questions, lead this country in a better direction?
Wouldn't we be better off with a man who has shown us that party affiliation has nothing to do with his beliefs? Obama may read a speech written by someone else very good, but how many times has he stood up, regardless of his party affiliation, and said this is right? He hasn't! He has always towed a party line and always will! He has no judgment of his own, only what he is told to support!
You disagree? Post examples!
lakerat if you ever cared to crawl out of your damp lake environment and see the world--or at least the other states in the union--you'd understand that there are complex political systems at work. You are so parochial it's scary. You claim to be a business person, but with your narrow views and clearly uninformed / unformed intellect, you are obviously little more than a corporate welfare baby.
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