bc i'm apparently unfamiliar with this acorn thing...:
Fight the Smears: Barack Obama Never Organized with ACORN
now i say this bc while looking for info on obama/acorn, the ONLY sites i found making the connection were linked to fox news, johnmccain.com, the washingtonpost, drudge...etc. Now..if this had come up earlier..like.way back when..before mccain's group started coming up with ANYTHING to discredit obama, then i may think it's something to mention. as it is, though, i think most will just see it as a mccain tactic and move on.

well, then, it hardly matters what one thinks of acorn in connection with obama.
s o i suppose we could talk about acorn in another thread.

It is clear that Obama has no connection with ACORN. It's the same old race-based Obama hating strategy we've seen from FauX News and the McSame campaign. I see nothing here.

Acorn pulled down the world economy? Please explain.

Frivolous litigation? What do you consider frivolous?

Rampant voter registration fraud? Numbers please.

Please note that I said: "lending practices ACORN advocated" damaged the world economy, not "ACORN pulled down the world economy." The policies to which I refer are the laws, among which the CRA is one, which encouraged the development of the "sub-prime" lending market and its' associated sale of bundled loans, the collapse of which has so damaged the global economy over the past few weeks.

I direct your attention to the recent incidents in Nevada, in which ACORN registration volunteers not only signed up pets, resterants, and the starting lineup of the Dallas Cowboys, but were also accused by at least two people of trying to register them to vote fifteen or more times, aggressively in both cases.

I apologize. My prejudices in this matter ran away with me for a moment. I cannot recall any specific instances of ACORN initiating a frivolous lawsuit, so consider my comment in that part retracted until and unless I can discover some proof.

ACORN has registered over 1 million voters nationwide and less than one half of 1% have been questioned by state authorities anywhere.

I guess we have a different standard for rampant voter registration fraud.

You do understand that under most state laws, any voter registration form received by a voter advocacy organization must be submitted to the state for review.
-----Added 12/10/2008 at 12 : 45 : 00-----
added:

oh....as to the CRA and the sub-prime excesses (puilling down the world economy):

the vast majority of subprime loans were made by lenders that were not subject to the CRA and those loans made under the CRA were subject to more oversight than other subprime loans because of CRA requirements

It's odd that an advocate for poor people would support predatory lending. If you're looking for a villain there, try the banks or advocates of Reaganite deregulation. Among other things, Acorn campaigns against foreclosures. In light of that, i'd say they're propping up the property market and supporting the health of the global economy.

2 people thought Acorn folks were overly pushy, some absurd registrations were thrown out as they should have been, and no one voted fraudulently. Minor stuff.

Here is what gets me about the faux anger at ACORN. They are made that ACORN submitted fraudulent voter registrations and claim that ACORN is trying to steal the election.

Here is what they don't tell you:

1) ACORN is required by law to submit any and all registrations given to them even if they are fraudulent.
2) ACORN flagged the fraudulent registrations, turned them in separately, and reported their concerns about the registrations to the state agencies.


given these 2 facts why are people upset about ACORN?

it makes for good ratings/headlines?

I mean, heck, you could put up something like MCCAIN LINKED TO MOLAB!!! and write some incendiary stuff..people will pretend to know what molab is when i just made it up :)

Oh, I'm sorry, did I miss somebody calling her a traitor and calling for her to be killed?

I don't want her killed--I just want her to go the fuck away.

For those who insist on pushing an Obama / Ayers connection:

From Politifact.com:

PolitiFact | Not a radical group, and Ayers didn't run it

Not a radical group, and Ayers didn't run it
Pants on fire!

For most of the election, Sen. John McCain's campaign has been somewhat subtle about trying to tie Sen. Barack Obama to the former '60s radical William Ayers.

No longer. A 90-second Web ad released Oct. 8, 2008, features sinister music, side-by-side photographs of Obama and Ayers, and a series of dubious allegations about their past connections, including this one:

"Ayers and Obama ran a radical education foundation together."

Ayers was a founding member of the militant Vietnam-era anti-war group the Weathermen. He was investigated for his role in a series of domestic bombings, but the charges were dropped in 1974 due to prosecutorial misconduct. He is now an education professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago, and actively engaged in the city's civic life.

The McCain campaign said the "radical education foundation" to which they were referring is the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, a charity endowed by publishing magnate Walter Annenberg that funded public-school programs in Chicago from 1995 to 2001.

We'll look at whether the foundation was radical. But first we have to grapple with whether Obama and Ayers ran it.

Obama served on the foundation's volunteer board from its inception in 1995 through its dissolution in 2001, and was chair for the first four years. So an argument can be made that he ran it, though an executive director handled day-to-day operations.

Ayers, who received his doctorate in education from Columbia University in 1987 and is now a professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago, was active in getting the foundation up and running. He and two other activists led the effort to secure the grant from Annenberg, and he worked without pay in the early months of 1995, prior to the board's hiring of an executive director, to help the foundation get incorporated and formulate its bylaws, said Ken Rolling, who was the foundation's only executive director. Ayers went on to become a member of the "collaborative," an advisory group that advised the board of directors and the staff.

However, Ayers "was never on the board of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge," and he "never made a decision programmatically or had a vote," Rolling said.

"He (Ayers) was at board meetings — which, by the way, were open — as a guest," Rolling said. "That is not anything near Bill Ayers and Barack Obama running the Chicago Annenberg Challenge."

Now, was the foundation radical?

The McCain campaign cited several pieces of evidence for that allegation, including a 1995 invitation from the foundation for applications from schools "that want to make radical changes in the way teachers teach and students learn." The campaign appears to have confused two different definitions of the word "radical." Clearly the invitation referred to "a considerable departure from the usual or traditional," rather than "advocating extreme measures to retain or restore a political state of affairs."

The campaign also cited two projects the foundation funded, one having to do with a United Nations-themed Peace School and another that focused on African-American studies.

"That is radical in the eye of this campaign and we imagine in the eyes of most Americans," said Michael Goldfarb, a spokesman for McCain. "It is a subjective thing, and there are going to be people in Berkeley and Chicago who think that is totally legitimate."

Teaching about the United Nations and African-American studies may not be everyone's cup of tea, but it's hardly "radical" in the same way Ayers' Vietnam-era activities were. Moreover, most of the projects the foundation funded (more on that below) were not remotely controversial.

The McCain campaign also cited an opinion piece by conservative commentator Stanley Kurtz in the Sept. 23, 2008, Wall Street Journal as evidence of the foundation's radicalism. Kurtz wrote that Ayers was the "guiding spirit" of the foundation, and it "translated Mr. Ayers's radicalism into practice."

But Ayers' views on education, though certainly reform-oriented and left-of-center, are not considered anywhere near as radical as his Vietnam-era views on war. And even if they were, there was a long list of individuals involved with the Chicago Annenberg Challenge whose positions provided them far more authority over its direction than Ayers' advisory role gave him.

Let's look at a few, starting with the funder. Annenberg was a lifelong Republican and former ambassador to the United Kingdom under President Richard Nixon. His widow, Leonore, has endorsed McCain. Kurtz might just as plausibly have accused Obama and the foundation of "translating Annenberg's conservatism into practice."

Among the other board members who served with Obama were: Stanley Ikenberry, former president of the University of Illinois; Arnold Weber, former president of Northwestern University and assistant secretary of labor in the Nixon administration; Scott Smith, then publisher of the Chicago Tribune; venture capitalist Edward Bottum; John McCarter, president of the Field Museum; Patricia Albjerg Graham, former dean of the Harvard University Graduate School of Education, and a host of other mainstream folks.

"The whole idea of it being radical when it was this tie of blue-chip, white-collar, CEOs and civic leaders is just ridiculous," said the foundation's former development director, Marianne Philbin.

The foundation gave money to groups of public schools – usually three to 10 – who partnered with some sort of outside organization to improve their students' achievement.

In his opinion piece, Kurtz puts a sinister spin on this: "Instead of funding schools directly, it required schools to affiliate with 'external partners,' which actually got the money...CAC disbursed money through various far-left community organizers, such as the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (or ACORN)."

Rollings said the foundation tried to fund the schools directly, but doing so proved to be a "bureaucratic nightmare." But any external group that received money had to have created a program in partnership with a network of public schools.

And though ACORN is considered a liberal organization, the vast majority of the foundation's external partners were not remotely controversial. Here are a few examples: the Chicago Symphony, the University of Chicago, Loyola University, Northwestern University, the Chicago Children's Museum, the Museum of Science and Industry, the Field Museum, the Commercial Club of Chicago, the Garfield Park Conservatory Alliance and the Logan Square Neighborhood Association.

Had Kurtz chosen to accuse Obama of carrying water for the conservative Annenberg, he might have written: "CAC disbursed money to various business-friendly entities, such as the Museum of Science and Industry and the Commercial Club of Chicago."

See how easy it is?

The programs the foundation funded were designed to allow individuals from the "external partners" – whether the musicians in the symphony or the business leaders in the commercial club – to help improve student achievement. They were along the lines of mentoring by artists, literacy instruction, professional development for teachers and administrators, and training for parents in everything from computer skills to helping their children with homework to advocating for their children at school.

This last activity – something suburban parents practice with zeal – is also suspect in Kurtz's view: "CAC records show that board member Arnold Weber was concerned that parents 'organized' by community groups might be viewed by school principals 'as a political threat.'" That is typical of Kurtz's essay – relatively innocuous facts cast in the worst possible light. That's appropriate for an opinion piece, perhaps, but hardly grounds for a purportedly factual political ad accusing the group of radicalism.

We could go on and on with evidence that the Chicago Annenberg Challenge was a rather vanilla charitable group. For example, under the deal with Annenberg every dollar from him had to be matched by two from elsewhere. The co-funders were a host of respected, mainstream institutions, such as the National Science Foundation, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the W.K. Kellogg Foundation and the Chicago Public Schools.

In short, this was a mainstream foundation funded by a mainstream, Republican business leader and led by an overwhelmingly mainstream, civic-minded group of individuals. Ayers' involvement in its inception and on an advisory committee do not make it radical – nor does the funding of programs involving the United Nations and African-American studies.

This attack is false, but it's more than that – it's malicious. It unfairly tars not just Obama, but all the other prominent, well-respected Chicagoans who also volunteered their time to the foundation. They came from all walks of life and all political backgrounds, and there's ample evidence their mission was nothing more than improving ailing public schools in Chicago. Yet in the heat of a political campaign they have been accused of financing radicalism. That's Pants on Fire wrong.

____________________________________________________

How anyone can continue to push this nonsense baffles me. The degree of willful ignorance involved is astounding. The teeniest bit of research completely debunks this entire preposterous claim of guilt by association.

That it is not approaching 100% to 0% in Obama's favor(more quickly) is actually a bit shocking to me.

I'm on business in Minneapolis for two weeks. I had a conversation in the dinning room at the hotel tonight. My conversation partner was very personable, but he was still very mislead on this stuff. It was just crazy. He was claiming that Barack Obama was the assistant director at an organization called ACORN, where the director said that if the kids parents disagreed they should be dead. I almost burst out laughing. I said that I thought he had gotten some wires crossed along the way.

Regarding the war in Iraq that I said was an invasion of a sovereign nation which posed no immediate threat to us he argued. He said we needed to stay to honor the lives of the dead troops. It would be dishonorable to leave. That vexed me. He went on to say, at one point, "What about Saddam Hussein's ties to Osama and Al Queda[sp?]?" (O.o)

...are you kidding me?

All I can hear is doodoo doodoo doodoo doodoo(Twilight Zone)

chris matthews gained a TON of my respect during the 2nd debate..when someone said "why isn't obama leading more in the polls" "bc he's black.."

seriously, if this was old white guy vs old white guy, it'd be a complete blowout

btw, US Presidential Election 2008 does have it as 99.5:.5 obama/mccain...

My minds kind of wondering a little tonight. I'm thinking of something. I'm kind of drawing a blank. Something about eggs, chickens and hatching.

Wow, Tully. Now I'm hungry. ;)

You got that right....or till the fat lady sings.

That right, you've got us right where you want us.

Perhaps you missed the last 8 years: Liar, thief, not my president, the biggest terrorist, general betrayus, a movie about the sitting president being assassinated - none of which came from some random extremist (probably a plant) in some public forum - in fact all of which were justified by all of you.

Very big of you to admit you don't want her killed, and it's no surprise you want her to go away. Seems like thats what most liberals want of people that don't agree with them.

I was wondering how long it would take until ACORN pushed back. This connection to Obama is not only fraudulent, but an embarrassing accusation for the McCain campaign.

Don't misunderstand. I don't dislike McCain personally, or Republicans for that matter. The problem is his despicable campaign staff. I can't stand more than ten seconds of Tucker Bounds before I want to throw my TV out the window. A bunch of craven, slithering predators who shame their party and their country. McCain's penchant for saying that Obama will "raise taxes" is tame by comparison to their degenerate, gutter backstabbing and brazen lies.

I haven't been this troubled about my country since the Patriot Act was passed.

I dont want her to go away after she loses (although she probably will because the leaders of her own party will toss her aside)...she is such a disingenuous lightweight, its almost too easy to pick on her.

Off the wall. All of us supported these things. Wow. Substantiate that.

Other than the movie, and General Betrayus(because I don't get into this name calling business), I can see why those viewpoints are out there.

As for the last comment, come on. Isn't this what most want about the people they disagree with? I don't understand the liberal constraint on this. That just seems hilariously partisan, without reason.

Normally I'd say I believe it Weds. morning. This time I'm waiting 'til mid January before buying and party supplies.

[quote=Herk;2544535]Off the wall. All of us supported these things. Wow. Substantiate that.[QUOTE]

read through this thread: http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/tilted-...ed-panned.html Overwhelming support, so i think the "all of you" was fair. I find the lack of reaction to these posts by Jinn and Stompy just as telling:


"Are you extremely excited to see a film about George Bush getting assassinated?"
JInn: I don't know about him, but I certainly am.

Stompy: I'll watch it... hoping... that one day dreams come true.

I'm not sure I'm understanding this "liberal contraint" you speak of.

gee, matthew, so you think there's no difference between the statements of particular individuals in no consistent contexts and those made in the context of political rallies that feature speeches which explicitly invoke and channel violent emotions?

i don't understand how that's possible, unless your point is nothing more than "yeah well you do it too so what we do is no different" and to thereby effectively argue that there's nothing particular or strange about the actions of the mc-cain/palin campaign in playing to petit-bourgeois rage.

so what's your point, exactly?

I made my point, and I can't help you out any more in understanding it. I think it's a fairly simple one, and I've resigned myself to not say the same thing 50 different times and 50 different ways because someone claims they "don't get it".

that's nice matthew.
so i'll conclude that your inability to clarify your logic means that your point is not interesting.

we agree to disagree, yes?

I am going to make a totally unfair attack against Obama. Those who are sensitive to such attacks should stop reading this post.

So, Obama said that he thought Ayers was "rehabilitated" and it got me to thinking. Gee, what if after Obama gets elected, and of course stops the illegal wire taps, and he get a text message from Osama Bin Ladin. I would imagine it to go like this:

From Bin Ladin: ?4U (question for you)
From Obama: W@ (what?)
Bin Ladin: Ben Rhabd! ( I have been rehabilitated)
Obama: KEWL! (cool)
Bin Ladin: MIRL (lets meet in real life)
Obama: 2Mor (tomorrow)
Bin Ladin: No DD (no due diligence)
Obama: DF (don't even go there with me)
Bin Ladin: lOl (laugh out loud)

I apologize to all, but I had to do it.

Everyone who did not read this, it is now safe to carry on.:thumbsup:

ace...i'm all for a good attack on a politician...

but man, what are you smoking :)

as for the ayers thing..i mean, if he was such a terrorist..would he be teaching at a university now?

"as for the ayers thing..i mean, if he was such a terrorist..would he be teaching at a university now?"

Please tell me you're joking.

oh..i forgot

elitist intellectual=unreformed terrorist.

Doesn't Bin Laden teach at Berkley?

I heard that University of Illinois was considering hiring Timothy McVeigh, but things didn't work out. They the got Bill Ayers instead.

Doesn't the whole "was on the board of an institution funded by Republicans" saying something about the notion that he's at least somewhat rehabilitated? Not to mention that the Weather Underground intentionally acted in ways to avoid killing people? Not that I think there's anything to the notion of the Obama - Ayers connection, given that they haven't really had anything to do with each other for the past ten years. McCain is far more closely connected with Keating, to pick a random example. I'm just saying that even if the connection were somewhat closer, it wouldn't really make a difference to me.

asaris, why interject logic and facts into a good smear?

and bin laden teaches at UC-Davis, not berkeley...

Besides, on a scale of "waving while jogging" and "flying away on a family vacation together" ...don't you think mccain is closer to keating than ayers is with obama

At least it's not like Sarah Palin is married to someone who wants Alaska to secede from the union. And it's not like she has a history of giving her husband complete access to whatever resources she has at her disposal as an elected official. Nope. There's no problem there.

You know, Reagan was a staunch supporter of a notorious terrorist enabler named Oliver North.

A McCain top adviser named William E. Timmons was a paid lobbyist for Saddam Hussein.

You want to talk associations, that's a bull's eye, right there.

Another totally unfair attack on Obama, again if you are sensitive to such attacks, have a pace maker, or graduated from Chicago public schools - you have been warned.

I am kinda like McCain these days - I am going to use even another approach to attack Obama. this one in the form of a series of true/false questions, that you the reader of this can answer as you read.

Chicago Public Schools have been ranked among the worst in the nation - True or False?
Obama/Ayers worked on the board of an organization to improve Chicago Public Schools - True or False?
Obama/Ayers raised millions of dollars to help improve Chicago Public Schools - True or False
Obama's major accomplishment prior to running for office in Illinois was being a community organizer, to help the people get ahead- True or False?
As a State representative Obama had opportunity to pass legislation to improve Chicago Public Schools - True or false?
As a US Senator Obama had opportunity to pass legislation to improve Chicago Public Schools - True or False?
Obama is against pay for performance for teachers - True or False?
Obama is against school choice or vouchers - True or False?
Obama helped improve Chicago Public Schools - True or False?
Obama sends his children to Chicago Public Schools? - True or False?
Obama believes that poor should have the same opportunities as the "rich" - True or False?
Obama is a hypocrite - True or False?

You decide!

Again I apologize for another totally unfair, non-fact based, non-issue related attack, but it is over now, feel free to carry on.:thumbsup:

Not interested in what Obama did regarding education?
Not interested in what Obama accomplished as a community organizer? Elected official?

I get it. I should have never attacked Obama. My apologies.

Why is your post in yellow?

Because he is a moderator

i don't use mod-mode very often, but when i do, it's in yellow.
like this is:

this is not a debating point ace.
there's a series of pissy non-posts above yours as well.
so this isn't really about you.

do something else with the thread or i'll close it.

Nevermind

When its all said and done, it will be interesting to hear McCain's reflection on this campaign.

I dont think he will look back fondly on how he sold himself out when he turned the campaign over to the Rove surrogates and the social conservative base of the party.

I thinks it clear the Palin wasnt his selection but he was convinced that he needed to shore up the conservative base. If he had his way, Lieberman would have been his running mate. They may have lost some of the base (but where else could they go?) but been much more competitive with the swing voters.

And its clear that the focusing of the campaign on "character" not "issues" was the strategy of the Rove disciples in positions of influence in his campaign.

His failure was to surround himself with these characters based on their past reputation that they could win by holding the base and sliming the opponent.

And when he fails, he has no one to blame but himself.

I wonder who runs the show. It's not McCain. He was probably forced to accept certain things as a condition for campaign support, which suggests that he was weak to begin with. The campaign has proven that he is an ineffectual leader.

Come to think of it, none of the Republican presidents were really powerful. Ronnie was out of it a couple months into his first term. Papa Bush did not have the popularity to be very powerful and depended on the Atwaters of the world to get him through. Bush II has never seemed to be fully in control of figures like Cheney, Rumsfeld, & Rove.

I am interested in taking a deeper look into the Ayers/Obama connection. I think this deeper look is related to Obama and his work locally on education and carries forward to his work as an elected official on education. It appears no one is interested in a deeper look other than to complain about McCain's strategy. I think Obama made no impact on the school system in Chicago as a community organizer, state representative, or in the senate. I also think it is hypocritical for Obama to talk about "fairness" pretending to be an advocate for the middle class and the poor, while he sends his children to private school (to the tune of about $20,000/year in tuition).

In my experience, I have grown accustom to what to expect, so I have a little fun with it. If I were inclined I could predict and write the responses that will follow.

here's the thing
the two campaigns seem to be: "i'm for change" from obama and "Yea, me too..but look what obama did" from mccain.

i just think people are far more concerned with the current issues.

mc-cain is in a very tight space for manoeuvre---the weight of 8 years of cowboy george is obviously huge, and i don't see anyone who is not a dyed-in-the-wool ultra-conservative buying the premise that the campaign chose to build from, that mc-cain represents an alternative to the bush people. i can kinda see how it might appeal to that demographic, however---but going in that direction for the campaign meant that it really was abandoning the moderates, abandoning independents i think, simply because of the viewpoint you have to occupy to see this alternative thing as substantive.

so the campaign chose to go at the populist right base. that's the centre of the campaign, and that's what it will live or die by.

this business of lobbing these shit-bombs at obama and desperately hoping something will stick appeals to the other potential demographic--people who are inclined to vote against obama--and the reasons for that are various, some of them ugly no doubt. but these are not the same people--those for whom palin is a viable candidate, those who are inclined to vote against obama. thing is that the mc-cain camp seems to be working on the assumption that there's little substantive in this inclination to vote against obama, and so seem to want only to create more spaces that this vague disaffection can find out there to give itself shape.

i don't think there's anything interesting to talk about with the linkage that the mc-cain people have more or less made up between obama and bill ayers. and even if there was such a link, i would have no problem with it. but the fact is that there no there there.

if mc-cain's campaign thinks it can split obama's demographic with this kind of approach, they have to do something different with it. redbaiting appeals only to conservatives. this smear approach appeals to conservatives.

i'm sure that if they had something substantial to play with, they'd have already done it: so i assume they've got nothing.

but if they've got nothing substantive, then the tactic seems an exercise in futility.
and it ain't working.

One final question from me concerning this election, and I will no longer take shots at Obama.

Do you folks think Obama is winning the election or is it that McCain is losing it?

Or I guess it is two questions - Are you happy with the answer to the question above?

I think it's both. Obama has had a good ground game from the beginning. I think his ground game caught Hilary off guard and her camp underestimated him from the beginning. McCain hasn't really fared much better.

On the other hand McCain seems to be on about his 50th tact now. There have been days where McCain has contradicted his own comments. Not comments from a week or month ago, comments form earlier that day. Last week his camp seemed to have reached critical mass. It's hard to imagine there's anywhere for him to go but up. The question now is time. Is there enough time for him to go up enough. Personally I don't think so but it is possible I guess, esp. if Obama suffers some self inflected wound.

I think Obama is genuinely winning.

obama has been clearly winning it since he started his campaign. He fought a great battle against the clintons and focused on how to win, sticking and moving, focusing on areas that counted for him..then gets the nomination and has played the same style. He has an amazing team that focuses very very well in key areas.

on top of that, he doesn't have 8 yrs of hugging bush under his belt..

I've known what Obama said about Ayers for a long time, but I'm glad he finally resolved it on national TV. I wonder what the McCain ads will take now, instead of attacking him on the Ayers front. Maybe more 'tax and spend' democrats commercials? Or "Congressional liberals" who want to raise taxes?

Can't speak to the rest, but:

Obama says frequently that he's NOT among those he'd lower taxes on. I saw him say that the upper income people, "People like my opponent and me", would pay more tax. He's not hiding anything about his income--not the way McCain is by refusing to release Cindy's returns.

What's hypocritical is McCain pretending he gives a rip about the common man when he's looking down from the third floor window of house #8. Barack and Michelle were on food stamps when they first got married. John and Cindy were eating caviar off her daddy's teat. Who's the hypocrite?

I think if Obama was white and had a more standard name he would be ahead by a landslide because of the horrible economic news which is being perceived as a Washington/Republican problem and voters want change. His race and unusual name are keeping his lead within striking distance.