...condemnation of these acts!

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

In the bad old days of Jim Crow, racists resorted to the the billyclub upside the head, the lynching tree, the shotgun blast in the night, or the bomb in the church to stop people from voting.

The threats against ACORN are just the 21st century version of that. But I have news for the modern Dixiecrats of the GOP, we will not be intimidated. We will not go back to the bad old days. Not now...not ever.

So think twice before you do something stupid and illegal. After January 20th it will be a new day and you will prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

Bob Simpson
The BobboSphere

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

I have been a member of ACORN for several years. It's an organization that is being hunted down by the Republic Party, the McStain campaign, and the morons in the media that can't understand they're being played!

This is very painful, personally. To think that there is currently a WITCH HUNT going on against a grassroots organization made up of over 400,000 everyday people all across this country that do very good work within their communities every day. We are all hard working people who love our communities and want to make them better. We have helped thousands and thousands of people stay out of foreclosure and stay in their homes. We have helped communities work on public safety issues such as installing stop signs, traffic lights, street lights and stepping up police patrols in dangerous neighborhoods. We have signed petitions, picketed, sat through countless city council meetings, met with state legislators to improve our communities. We are diligent. We work hard. We do this all FOR FREE because we want to make our cities and towns and neighborhoods better for everyone who lives there.

The fact that people would believe the lies and propaganda that has been launched against ACORN breaks my heart. And the fact that they believe these things and are vandalizing ACORN offices and threatening ACORN workers and members is completely disturbing.

For all those people who pooh-pooh the comparisons to Germany in the 1930s better wise up and quickly. This is becoming very frightening to some of us. To some of us, this is very real. But my question is... FOR WHAT? Because the fucking Republics don't want to lose an election!

The entire country should be ashamed that we have devolved to this. It's McCarthyism all over again. Is that what we want in this country?

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

I was also going to add, "this should be national news!" But I see that the report originated with McClatchy, also known as "the only major newspaper holding that actually even remotely does its friggin' job," so I guess that's something...

For someone who falls somewhere between Traditional Democrat & a bomb-throwing radical, I've been trying very hard to maintain a base level of respectful compassion for those who still mistakenly support McCain.

I don't know if I can continue much longer in adhering to this personal policy. I'm kind of starting to feel the urge to randomly bash some hateful idiot's skull the fuck in, & I'm not sure if this is directed more at the lizard-brainers involved in this vandalism or the MSM who continue to allow McCain to vomit these clearly & wholly false accusations day after day, after day.

Something's got to give. Perhaps that thing could start with Obama's spineless response to these lies during the final debate. Instead of clearly describing what ACORN actually does, he saw fit to do no more than claim no more than minimal involvement with the organization, many years ago. Without groups like ACORN, where the hell would so many of the massive groundswell of new voters he so depends on have come from?!?

While I don't honestly expect much true change from Obama-as-hypothetical-President, I have generally been of the opinion that his campaign has been nearly flawless, in terms of timing & emphasis. But his near silence on this issue seems like a real shoot-your-own-foot moment.

Gahh!

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

...enabled by other right wing terrorists. Not only are these acts incited by lies and misleading generalizing statements by McCain and his campaign, but also they are supported by the sham investigation by the corrupt justice department.

You are seeing the beginning of the end of the Republic. It's going to get ugly real soon. Prepare for the worst. Either the election is fixed and stolen...or the right wing nuts riot after a legitimate landslide.

Either way, America loses. Just what they had planned all along.

obi

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

...and I don't buy McCain's trumped up support of Obama as a family man, not an "Ayrab". This lady was planted, just as the now debunked "Joe the Plumber" was planted. The racist junk they're putting out is exactly the message intended; only the public outcry forced McCain to back off (in a completely staged maneuver), only to go right back to the same old message in rallies and advertising. We're in the home stretch now, and panic has set in. What will happen if McCain isn't elected to the presidency? Bush and Cheney will be impeached and tried in a court of law, that's what. McCain & Palin are doing everything in their power to get elected, but it's a last ditch, go-for-broke, 4th quarter, two-minute-warning with no timeouts effort, and all the hate-mongering in the world will only backfire on them.
Let's hear it for the next President of the United States, Barack Obama!

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

The Truth About ACORN's Voter Registration Drives

Why Is ACORN Being Accused of “Voter Fraud” Across the Country?

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

The dirty secret that's the 800 lb elephant in the US, progressives are hunted and persecuted by the powerful. In a country where unions are a pejorative, and being a liberal is code for terrorist, "Drill Baby Drill" can easily become "Kill baby kill." It's happened over and over again in the US. It's not just the Bush administration that is toxic to the environment, the economy, the spirit of fairness, and any aspiration for equality. McCain's campaign can no more betray the hard right corporatist DNA than Bush or Cheney can accept responsibility for willfully wrecking this once wanna-be great society.
When all communications are spied upon, and a Quaker meeting for peace in the Bakersfield CA library is infiltrated by FBI provocateurs, we are no more free than the soviet citizens were.
This ACORN lynching is thorough, effective and truly american. By attacking civic participation, McCain's campaign is channeling HUAC, McCarthyites, the Catholic Church, Teamsters, AFL-CIO,'moderate' Democratic party leadership, and the virulent, violent anti-citizen committees that have burned crosses, gay bashed and bombed in the service of the rich, powerful and intolerant in the US. It's not just that the right wing is better shots than the left in the US. John Lennon was the only Beatle gunned down, reputedly for supporting political causes. MLK was tolerated - until he started agitating for economic equity. Acorn represents a threat to the most powerful, and most paranoid in the US. The most powerful have reason to fear, they have committed great evil.

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

Yes, these people who are threatening the lives of ACORN workers also claim to be pro-life. Nice bunch. I'll bet that they'd be pro-abortion, not merely pro-choice, if they could determine if a fetus was a Democrat.

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

I truely am concerned about those out canvassing for nearly ANY perceived "liberal" Group or Candidate...McCain has ignited the Fear Factor which invokes the Fight Response- Pure Gutteral reactions from those who have been Running blindly since 9/11.
Being a Horse Girl - I've Seen 'Running Blind'- avoiding a startling non threat leads right into A Real threat. Even in Horses We call Them Dumbasses.Fails to easily avoid the blades of a manure spreader to RUN from a piece of paper!
'Joe the Plumber' is a great example of those who support McCain (Neo Cons)...A Dumbass!
Also having been Run over by the 'flight Response' FOR NO GOOD REASON a Few times..You Learn You can't always Fix Stupid, Sometimes it's in their Genes.No amount of Training, desensitizing shakes that intial response mechanism- some lines are Just 'Crazy' and I suspect it is the same in Humans - It's not just Nurture, it's nature.
Hint Canvassers If they have a Confederate Flag in the garage, Back away Quickly, John McCain has incited incited Blind Rage- which is Fight & Flight in unison a Deadly combination.

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

.

jdfu!

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

They were called "Brown Shirts".

McCain/Palin are inciting violence with their spin and BS rhetoric.

I think things will get much worse - even with an Obama win. Can you imagine what these Brown Shirts will do against an Obama presidency? They will cry foul at the smallest thing: look at how they used a sex act and subsequent lie about it to impeach Clinton.

However, I think it will put a spotlight on the hate and racism in this country and could be an opportunity for consciousness raising in the long run, many people will wake up to their outmoded and idiotic prejudices and work for change. It could happen.

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

I think everyone pretty well knows that the GOP have been practising election fraud for many years and are now being castigated for it so I can understand where McCain is coming from with his lies about ACORN. He believes that the best defence is a good offense. It isn't going to help him here though. Ohio's GOP egregious attempt at nullifying 200,000 new voters right to attend the polls will see to that and point to McCain's unparalleled hypocrisy.

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

Boy this is scary stuff. How precariously close we are to complete civil disintegration. One would have hoped to be further evolved by now, but the divisive and racially hateful nature of this campaign, thanks to McCain and Palin, has unraveled what little decorum was left.

Hope is not lost, however. We must keep these stories foremost on our blogs, get the word out in the hopes that we can somehow educate and bring reason to the masses. I simply will not allow this country to sink any further. Talk about a fight for righteousness! Power to the People to overcome this new Republican inspired domestic terrorism!

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

In accusations like this I always like to investigate the charges from the point of view of the alleged wrongdoer. If I controlled ACORN and was putting together a conspiracy to throw the election, how would I do it? Prior to the deadlines for registration, I would have to decide which states were toss ups and how many fake registrations I would need from each state to assure the election results would go my way. I would have no way of knowing if any state would be decided by just a few hundred votes, especially weeks before the election, so to cover myself I might decide to fake 20,000 votes in each of five states. That means I'd need to create 100,000 fake identities backed up by fake documents like drivers licenses. These identities would need to be impervious to detection,or to be kicked out by a state computer. And most important it could never be traced back to me or to a single one of the large number of operatives involved in the conspiracy. If evidence is gathered against even one conspirator, they will cop a plea, the whole conspiracy will be revealed, and we'd all be charged with felonies.

Notice how quickly the actual fake registrations created by one or more unscrupulous canvassers was discovered, and then figure how your fakes could successfully withstand scrutiny.

The bottom line is a voting conspiracy of this magnitude is simply not possible to be successfully carried out. You might be able to figure out how to vote twice, or you might be able to throw an election in a totally corrupt and small community. And you can definitely find ways for illegal campaign contributions, but to carry out and get away with a conspiracy of this scope is just not going to happen.

And one more note. In my opinion no election of any size is going to be 100% accurate. The best we can hope for is that the error rate will be low and the miscount will be distributed among all candidates in the same proportions as the rest of the votes.

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

I have just finished reading this important book, and Naomi has a sequel "Give Me Liberty: A Handbook for American Revolutionaries" which just came out in September. While reading The End of America I thought at times she was over the top, but I can see from this news about Acorn that I was wrong.

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

I saw the headline and the word "Kristallnacht" popped into my head for some reason. Joe Six Pack, Joe the Plumber, Joseph Goebbels...
The Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies at the University of Minnesota has a collection of information, especially the collection on visual materials used to define the "other" in society - like racist pictures of Afro-Americans and watermelons, etc., similar to the ones used by Republicans on their fake food stamps. The link between these kinds of ethnic smears (black, Arab, Muslim), attacks on patriotism, etc. and dehumanizing the "other" thus making denial of civil rights, human rights, property rights, and any other rights, acceptable is a slippery slope... Let's shine the light on this and point it out for the UNAMERICAN behavior that it is.

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

Mark Crispin Miller, He's a leading media studies scholar at New York University, where he's teaching a course this semester on "How to steal an election." Interviewed on Bill Moyers, the Journal PBS on the net. See the whole interview
MARK CRISPIN MILLER: Well, I'm afraid that what we've seen in this decade, in this century is unprecedented. This upcoming election specifically is two sets of activities. One is vote suppression. It means various dirty tricks and tactics and legal devices used to shrink the size of the electorate before Election Day. For example, interfering with registration drives or making them vulnerable to partisan challenges or passing laws requiring certain kinds of documentation at polling places. Like the Jim Crow laws. Caging voters, which is sending them registered letters with forms that if they don't fill them out, their names will be stricken from the voter rolls. Voter purges. There's a whole huge menu of extremely ingenious devices now being used I think with unprecedented brazenness to try to make the electorate as small as possible in advance of Election Day. It makes a certain sense to try to see to it that those voters can't vote. That's one set of activities that I worry about. Also fraud by using the computerized voting systems which we now have in place in at least 80% of the country those systems through black box technology, precisely because it is so technical and it's so opaque and it's all run by private companies, private companies that have close ties to the Republican Party, the use of this kind of voting apparatus is extremely worrisome and something that we should be watching very carefully.
What is happening with ACORN is a first-class propaganda drive. The entities you've mentioned are all participating in it - Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, John McCain, the McCain campaign, despite the inconvenient fact that John McCain gave the keynote speech at ACORN's annual conference in 2006. We won't talk about that. The fact is that what we're hearing about ACORN is, without exception, false. It is false. ACORN itself flagged the suspicious voter registration forms that caused this whole thing to begin in Las Vegas about ten days ago. It brought those forms to the attention of the secretary of state who then turned around and said, "Ah-ha, evidence that you're conspiring to commit voter fraud." CAGING” It's really very simple. The Republican Party, in a particular state, will get a list of the names and addresses of Democrats and send them letters that look sort of like junk mail, you know? Often they'll have windows in the envelope, the kind of thing that people are going to be inclined to throw away. And if people don't open those envelopes and take out forms that are in them and fill them out and send them in, their names will be stricken from the voter rolls on that basis. They've also been known to send these kinds of forms to people who are overseas serving in the military. Well, they're not home to check their mail, so if they don't fill out the forms, their names are stricken from the voter roll.
This is the right on which all our other rights depend, as Tom Paine said. Nothing is more important than this right. This is the right for which millions of our forebears have shed their blood, have died. This is what keeps us free. Only this. If we lose the right to pick our representatives and to get rid of the government when we don't like it anymore, if we don't have that right, if we don't have that power, we're as good as slaves.
Go to "Video the Vote" and they will give you a camera to take to the polls and interview voters.
RULES” VOTE AS EARLY AS POSSIBLE.. DON’T MAIL IN YOUR BALLOT.REGISTER AND BRING YOUR ID. Even if you have already voted go back to the poll staion just to show big numbers.

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

In 2006, ACORN in California sued to have minimum wage rules waived on their behalf. The suit claimed that ACORN was not able to hire enough people at the current California minimum wage ($4.25). It also sued to waive having to provide health benefits.

The ACORN statement with the suit: "The more that ACORN must pay to each individual outreach worker -- either because of minimum wage or overtime requirements -- the fewer outreach workers it will be able to hire."

And it has the audacity to cheer when minimum wages are raised around the country. Fine for everyone else, not for ACORN.

Source: http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/clyne200410311142.asp

If you don't like that source, go to Google, type in "ACORN sues minimum wage California". Plenty of links.

ACORN — a corrupt organization filled with Left wing Nuts.

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]