Obama General Discussion... (Part 2)

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So the group has been around since 1970.

:

Actually, Acorn started in 1986 I believe. i also do not think it follows the same standards that it once had since its inception.

And w Obama's character as it is w attending Wrights church for 20 years it comes as no suprise that Obama is comfortable with what Acorn now represents.

And here's a news flash for you:



Official Statement From ACORN Housing President Alton Bennett, Executive Director Mike Shea
by Publius
STATEMENT FROM ALTON BENNETT,
PRESIDENT OF ACORN HOUSING, AND MIKE SHEA,
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, REGARDING
RECENT NEWS REPORTS


Washington, D.C. –”As President and Executive Director of ACORN Housing we were appalled and angry to see the video of two Washington, D.C. employees offering advice on how to operate an illegal enterprise to keep it hidden from the government. While no transaction took place – no loan documents were signed or submitted, no bank loans were arranged, no new business was established – this is not how we behave. All ACORN Housing staff members undergo rigorous training and are expected to comply with high standards for ethical behavior and compliance with the law.


“After more than two decades of helping people in need comply with the law in pursuit of the American dream of home ownership, it saddens us that ACORN Housing has been put in this position by everyone involved.”

<>
 
"And w Obama's character as it is w attending Wrights church for 20 years it comes as no suprise that Obama is comfortable with what Acorn now represents."

Do we really want to get into the issue of character as it relates to the respective church's we may or may not attend? That's a slippery slope, I'm afraid.
 
Youtube never lies :sigh:
...



?

Acorn has been around since 1970, do a little research.

Maybe so..but not ACORN Housing, and still has evolved into something totally different which is the more salient point.

Founded in 1986, ACORN Housing has counseled more than 350,000 low and moderate income families across the U.S., over 100,000 of which have become homeowners. ACORN Housing has 29 offices in 24 state
 
It's getting better:up:

Census Bureau Severs Ties With ACORN
by Publius
FoxNews.com reports:
The Census Director has sent a letter to the National Headquarters of ACORN notifying the group that the Census Bureau is severing all ties with the community organizing group for all work having to do with the 2010 census.
“Over the last several months, through ongoing communication with our regional offices, it is clear that ACORN’s affiliation with the 2010 Census promotion has caused sufficient concern in the general public, has indeed become a distraction from our mission, and may even become a discouragement to public cooperation, negatively impacting 2010 Census efforts,” read a letter from Census Director Robert M. Groves to the president of ACORN.
“Unfortunately, we no longer have confidence that our national partnership agreement is being effectively managed through your many local offices. For the reasons stated, we therefore have decided to terminate the partnership,” the letter said.
The news follows the firing Friday of two more ACORN employees after new hidden-camera footage showed workers for the group advising a couple posing as a pimp and prostitute how to subvert the law.
ACORN had previously been tapped to help with low level data gathering for the 2010 census. A copy of the director’s letter has been sent to Congress and relevant committees, as well as ACORN.
 
...
Former Leftist Activist, Turned FBI Informant, Pulls Back the Curtain On ACORN
by Brandon Darby
I first experienced ACORN in post-Katrina New Orleans. I was part of a relief organization, Common Ground Relief, which had been delivering much needed aid to the 9th Ward, an area that had been hit especially hard by the flood waters and by neglect. Rumors immediately began surfacing, questioning our motives and intentions. I was very confused by these rumors. Who was behind them? How could anyone question the vital work we were doing in the community? We lived and worked in the 9th Ward. We suspended our regular lives and, in many cases, left our families to travel to New Orleans to help those affected by Katrina and poverty. We slept on dirty plywood floors and shared everything we had with the residents. Most of us were white. Was our skin color the issue? I knew from personal experience that the majority of the Black 9th ward residents didn’t care what color our skin was. It took me awhile to get over the hurt I felt at such allegations and to find out where they were coming from.

In the following weeks, I was made aware of the fact that ACORN had reopened its New Orleans office (several months after the storm). Various groups from around the city informed me that Acorn was upset with us because we were in “their” community and had not sought approval from ACORN to operate there. I was told that ACORN said that we were “privileged white people who had come to a Black community as saviors and we refused to work with local Black leadership.”
The more I pondered the matter, the more I realized what was happening. As usual in marginalized and impoverished communities, a small group of radical self-proclaimed leaders was insisting that all local aid and relief came through them—even if they were AWOL for several months. Though the majority of residents either hadn’t heard of ACORN or simply disagreed with their politics- ACORN insisted that they were THE Black leaders. This was upsetting to me. Sure, the local pastor we worked most closely with was Black; but that didn’t matter to ACORN. It was as if Pastor Johnson didn’t count because he didn’t evoke the name of Elijah Mohammed or Malcolm X. It was as if Pastor Johnson didn’t count because he didn’t submit to ACORN’s mandate that ACORN was the sole leadership of Black New Orleanians.
As then director of Common Ground Relief’s 9th Ward project, I was warned by many that ACORN would ruin me politically if I didn’t submit to their leadership. I believed in what I was doing and how I was doing it. I refused to submit. The political fallout was almost unbearable. I just kept my eyes on meeting the needs of the community. When confronted by adherents to ACORN’s brand of race analysis, I pointed out that ACORN was not there immediately after the storm, so I could not have sought their leadership even if I had wanted to.
Over the following years, that particular style of political attack was prominent in New Orleans. Anytime that ACORN was displeased, the other party was deemed a racist. If the other party disagreed with the label or with ACORN’s agenda- they were met with “of course you feel that way. You are a racist.” Though it is clearly woefully inaccurate and unethical to use such an accusation as a political attack and as a means of shutting down philosophical debate and discourse, some at ACORN didn’t let that stop them. I refused to submit to it. I believed in listening to the majority of the community, who were desperate for our help, and not only to the self-proclaimed leaders. I paid a dear price for it.
I returned to Texas after a couple of years adminst the political quagmire of post-Katrina New Orleans. My experience there with various groups was educational and life-changing, though some of these groups concerned me. Eventually I began to see some of them as dangerous and deceitful about their missions. This, along with a growing appreciation of my country helped lead me to work with the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force.
I was as proud of this new era in my life as I was of my time in New Orleans. I had the privilege of participating in efforts where lives were saved; both in the United States and in Israel. While working undercover with the FBI at the Republican National Convention in Minnesota, I helped to uncover a bomb plot. Two men had made firebombs with a homemade napalm mixture of gasoline and oil. Their initial targets were Republican delegates. These bomb-makers (domestic terrorists) later decided to attack a staging area for the Secret Service and other law-enforcement agencies. Fortunately, they were stopped and arrested.

I was asked, and agreed, to testify against them. As was expected, the more radical elements of the media began to attack both me as an individual and the FBI as a whole. One of the men accused plead guilty; the other hired an expensive defense attorney and concocted a story about the FBI building these bombs to “set up left-wing activists” and stop dissent. But once the facts became clear, the defense changed their story and instead tried to blame the FBI for ”influencing” the terrorists. Thankfully, after one hung jury and many months of intense media attacks against me, the other bomb-maker (domestic terrorist) decided to come clean and admitted to the judge that he had invented the whole story.

What does any of this have to do with ACORN? I wondered the same thing on January 31st of 2009 when I was reading an ACORN blog that is run by Wade Rathke (the man who claims credit for founding ACORN). He devoted an entire page to my work with the FBI. How did he describe the FBI’s effort and success in preventing innocent Americans, local police and federal agents from being burned, maimed and/or possibly killed by firebombs? He wrote that it’s “one thing to disagree, but it’s a whole different thing to rat on folks.” That is what ACORN’s founder had to say about my role in stopping a bomb plot.

I was even more shocked as I continued reading the article. ACORN’s “founder” went on to mention that another self-proclaimed “radical” activist who had worked closely with him was also involved in my story. Her name is Lisa Fithian. I first encountered Ms. Fithian in New Orleans. She came to town after Common Ground Relief had started operations. She assumed a position of prominence and continuously challenged my work and leadership. During the RNC bombing trial, she cooperated with the defense of the bomb plotters and led media attacks on me and the FBI.
Ms. Fithian has been quoted in various mainstream news articles as saying, “Nonviolence is a strategy. Civil disobedience is a tactic,” and “Direct action is a strategy. Throwing rocks is a tactic.” She is also quoted as stating that “When people ask me, ‘What do you do?’ I say, ‘I create crisis’, because crisis is that edge where change is possible.”

ACORN receives tens of millions of dollars from taxpayers to promote their agenda. Free speech is sacred, of course. However, it is clear that ACORN has made a practice of blurring the lines between free speech and tax-payer-funded activism. Fortunately, our federal government is adept at investigating and identifying the misuse of federal funds. It will be interesting in the near future to see how Mr. Rathke and his ACORN associates stand up to the same scrutiny they have focused on our military, the FBI and other governmental groups and agencies.
 
Well, from what I can tell, he had the nerve to be in a group of many attorneys in his law firm to defend ACORN against a lawsuit back in the 90's. Then he also used them to do a Get Out The Vote campaign during the Democratic primaries. He didn't use them at all for the presidential election.

[Then some guy from a rival social activism group was at loggerheads with ACORN leadership in New Orleans in the wake of Katrina. Then this same guy acted as an agent provocateur, some say, and then turned FBI informant, and then they busted some other guys for Intent To Do Something Very Bad at the Republican National Convention. And then two part time ACORN staff members advised a prostitute and a pimp (except they weren't real, they were really activists trying to bust ACORN - see what they did there???) on how to run their prostitution ring.]*

So, I think it's fairly clear what's happened here: ACORN is obviously evil, dammit, ergo, SO IS OBAMA BECAUSE OF HIS SHADY ASSOCIATIONS WITH THEM. I mean, c'mon, it's obvious, isn't it?

I'm clutching pearls over these developments as we speak.


*none of which has anything to do with Obama
 
Elections have consequences.

Elections are the only poll that matters.

Deal with it.

(Is that not what all the anti-war libruls were told for 8 years?)
 

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simply embarrassing.

"Outside IT'S AMERICA
Outside IT'S AMERICA"

<>

the irony! :laugh:
 
why is spending an issue now, exactly?

are these people completely unaware of the massive defecits their warlord george bush gave them 8 years prior?

spending billions upon billions of on a war in iraq that was not needed, nor legal didn't upset these people, but healthcare for all citizens of their country does?

i feel sorry for the normal citizens of this country... i really do.

i suppose one has to write them off once and for all, and just get on with things. if i were american, i suppose that's what i'd do. there's no sense involved in some of these peopl is there?
 
also, there weren't no 2 million people.

ten thousand, maybe. which is impressive.

so, diamond, where are all the signs angry with Bush and Cheney for all the massive entitlement spending and defense spending over the past 8 years? we've seen that, by all measures, the economic condition of the country worsened due to that administration's policies. so i would expect that if these individuals are truly concerned with the direction of the country and have a sober take on the role of government then they should certainly be very, very angry with the previous president who created these enormous deficits by fabricating wars.

unfortunately, i've had to work all weekend, otherwise i would have gone down to the Capitol to watch the lunacy on display. i did this with anti-war rallies. i did march, in seriousness, and most people there were serious about being against the war. there was a looney fringe, of course, and they were entertaining, but hardly representative.

it would be interesting to see just what the mainstream at these rallies looks like.
 
Millions are marching on DC protesting this administration.

Up to two million march to US Capitol to protest against Obama's spending in 'tea-party' demonstration | Mail Online

FYMers:

"Outside IT'S AMERICA
Outside IT'S AMERICA"

<>

Are you not embarassed?

"Millions" who don't know the true definition of communism.

"Millions" who don't understand how are current healthcare works.

"Millions" who just all of a sudden get concerned about spending...

"Millions" who are just flat out uninformed...

I'm embarassed.
 
Wow, a WWHD sign... these people are brilliant. :|

I don't get it, why would you want to revel in ignorance? It's not something to celebrate.

You've shown your true colors guys. Thanks.:D
 
we've seen that, by all measures, the economic condition of the country worsened due to that administration's policies. so i would expect that if these individuals are truly concerned with the direction of the country and have a sober take on the role of government then they should certainly be very, very angry with the previous president who created these enormous deficits by fabricating wars.

1. Debt as a percentage of GDP on average was lower during the Bush years than the Clinton years. The poverty rate on average was lower during the Bush years than the Clinton years. The unemployment rate and inflation rate were both very similar. The only real lead Clinton years have on Bush years is in the average GDP growth rate of 5.8% to Bush's 4.8%.

2. Spending on national Defense, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, combined per year, is lower as a percentage of GDP than Defense spending during the peacetime of the Reagan Years. Barack Obama's current Secretary of Defense, Robert Gates, has brought up this point several times this year in response to concerns about the size of the defense budget.

3. The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq were not fabricated and both resulted from serious ongoing security problems in both countries. But that may be hard for some to realize if they remain uninformed about what was happening in these area's prior to Bush coming into office.
 
Elections have consequences.

Elections are the only poll that matters.

Deal with it.

(Is that not what all the anti-war libruls were told for 8 years?)


Strongbow said this for years on here but is now claiming that what he was really saying was that for national security and defense purposes only, elections matter and polls don't. For non-national security purposes, apparently polls do matter after all. Or some spurious post-hoc justification like that, I don't really understand it.
 
The only real lead Clinton years have on Bush years is in the average GDP growth rate of 5.8% to Bush's 4.8%.

I think that when discussing economics, you make far too much of blunt instruments like GDP comparisons, but, in any case, these figures imply that the increase in GDP experienced in the Clinton years was fully 25% higher than that experienced in the Bush years.
 
spending billions upon billions of on a war in iraq that was not needed, nor legal didn't upset these people, but healthcare for all citizens of their country does?

Well many of them already recognize and understand the necessity of removing Saddam from power and are being joined by a growing number of people who feel the same way.

If you want to argue that the world would be safer and more secure with Saddam in power, go ahead. But its a rather difficult arguement to make, and not one to many are making anymore.

As for the legality of the war, it was authorized by multiple UN resolutions, and then the occupation that resulted from the war was approved EVERY YEAR by the United Nations. Illegal? I don't think so.

Not a single country even tried to get a resolution passed calling for the withdrawal of coaltion forces when the invasion began, in total contrast to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, or the Russian invasion of Georgia.
 
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