Obama and ACORN: You Can Run, But You Can’t Hide

[Philthy]

Obama and ACORN: You Can Run, But You Can’t Hide

Monday, October 6, 2008 7:26 PM

By: Lowell Ponte

Barack Obama is running as fast and as far away from his association with the radical group ACORN as he can, but he can’t hide from the facts of his close relationship with the organization.


ACORN, or Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, describes itself as a “non-partisan” group devoted to helping the poor and to registering millions to vote. Critics accuse ACORN of involvement vote fraud, voter intimidation, shakedowns against businesses, and the promotion of socialist class hatred and class warfare.



Apparently worried by the connection between Obama and the group, his campaign has put claims of his ties to ACORN as the lead item on its “Fight The Smears” Web site — a site the Obama campaign created to counter what they claim are partisan lies made up against their candidate.

The release on the Obama site reads: “When Obama met with ACORN leaders in November, he reminded them of his history with ACORN and his beginnings in Illinois as a Project Vote organizer, a nonprofit focused on voter rights and education. Senator Obama said, ‘I come out of a grassroots organizing background. That's what I did for three and half years before I went to law school. That's the reason I moved to Chicago was to organize.


“So this is something that I know personally, the work you do, the importance of it. I've been fighting alongside ACORN on issues you care about my entire career. Even before I was an elected official, when I ran Project Vote voter registration drive in Illinois, ACORN was smack dab in the middle of it, and we appreciate your work.”


Indeed, Obama was being far too modest. The 2008 Democratic presidential nominee had worked not just alongside ACORN, but also as a key operative for the organization.

He was its lawyer in several pivotal ACORN cases.


Obama funded a number of its activities, as well. When he sat on the board of the prestigious Woods Fund for Chicago alongside former Weather Underground terrorist William Ayers, he oversaw and approved many grants for ACORN.

As the National Review’s Stanley Kurtz reported, one Woods committee report boasted that the fund’s “non-ideological” public image “enabled the Trustees to make grants to organizations that use confrontational tactics against the business and government ‘establishments’ without undue risk of being accused of partisanship.”


Obama was the Illinois director of ACORN’s controversial voter registration operation, and he trained the group’s leaders in the ways of radical, sometimes illegal, confrontational politics.

He also paid ACORN affiliates during his recent Democratic primary contest. For example, leading up to the 2008 Ohio Democratic Primary, Obama’s campaign between Feb. 25 and March 17 paid Citizens Services, Inc., a subsidiary of ACORN, $832,598, apparently for get-out-the-vote activities.

Obama’s mysterious, shrouded past as a “community organizer” is closely tied to ACORN, a group that supplies a large share of the Democratic Party political shock troops responsible for the party’s recapture of Congress in 2006.


ACORN has at least 350,000 dues-paying member families, and more than 800 chapters spread among at least 104 U.S. cities as well as in Canada, Mexico, Argentina, and Peru.


To outsiders, Obama’s “long service with ACORN led many of its members to serve as the voluntary shock troops of Obama’s early political campaigns — his initial 1996 State Senate campaign, and his failed bid for Congress in 2000,” wrote Kurtz. “With Obama having personally helped train a new cadre of Chicago ACORN leaders, by the time of Obama’s 2004 U.S. Senate campaign, Obama and ACORN were ‘old friends.’”

More of Obama's LIES uncovered!

[bassholic]

So is oboma gonna bomb the pentagon?

[Jeff92se]

Our own Gov't has ties 100x worse than this guy.

[0jiggy0]

Man some of you people are really scared huh. Keep trying I guess.

[StefanZ]

Originally Posted by Jeff92se

Our own Gov't has ties 100x worse than this guy.

That's your defense? I would like to retain you as Obama's defense attorney.

[Jeff92se]

Originally Posted by StefanZ

That's your defense? I would like to retain you as Obama's defense attorney.

Weren't you the one that was supporting all the propraganda surrounding "Obama is a terrorist" because he studied Islam when he was in grade school?

Or was it the Obama isn't an USA citizen because his birth certificate is fake?

[Motormouth]

the rope broke! watch out the sky is going to fall!!

but seriously, has ACORN been charged with anything? they are not radical as far as anything I know. 'critics' accuse Obomba of being a 'secret' muslim. doesn't mean it sticks. they have 300k+ members, so we apparently have 300k+ radicals living amongst us!!

ACORN groups work through direct action, negotiations, and with public officials. It does not accept government funding and is not tax exempt.[2]

your critics might claim that you are a childish idiot who should stay out of this sub forum because you waste space, but that doesn't make it true... does it? please note: I am not a critic and never implied that the charges were true so this is not a personal attack.



so when you show me some proof that ACORN is anything other than a consumer advocacy group with thier stated goals... a handful... and we are talking in the low TENS of people associated with ACORN have been in trouble (related to voter fraud) but I saw nothing that they were directed to do this. Republicans do the same thing (dead people in Ohio voting anyone?)

[Sizzle]

Another stupid thread.

Brian(waits for the Obama is a muslim and he can't hide thread)

[gmueip]

Another shady association for our socialist hope for the future

[IIQuickSilverII]

Originally Posted by Sizzle

Another stupid thread.

Brian(waits for the Obama is a muslim and he can't hide thread)

These attacks are recycled, having played out at length during the Democratic primary. So Obama not only successfully came up with solutions back then, explaining that he condemned Ayers's actions and never had any relationship with him, and eventually leaving Wright's church and condemning Wright's words, after giving an eloquent and insightful speech on the roll of race in modern society, but he now has the benefit of time and trial-and-error to craft an equally effective response to McCain's warmed-over sleazy attacks.

[KS0385]

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php...show_article=1

Just got Raided.

SHOCKING that there is no reference to Obama.

[Nihsnek]

Originally Posted by Jeff92se

Our own Gov't has ties 100x worse than this guy.

That's a good argument.





--Yeah right--

[KS0385]

Originally Posted by Nihsnek

That's a good argument.





--Yeah right--

Anarchy? You first.

[Z1NONLY]

Originally Posted by IIQuickSilverII

explaining that he condemned Ayers's actions and never had any relationship with him,

So you are saying Obama's a good liar?

Originally Posted by IIQuickSilverII

and eventually leaving Wright's church and condemning Wright's words,

Eventually? You mean after, and only after, Obama realized not doing so would be political sucide.

Before that he was happy to be there, and play along.

[Jeff92se]

Originally Posted by Nihsnek

That's a good argument.





--Yeah right--

We propped up the two guys we either invaded and killed or are currently looking for. So..................?

[IIQuickSilverII]

Originally Posted by Z1NONLY

Before that he was happy to be there, and play along.

since you are playing a long lets see if you play along with this BS guilt by association crap...

Originally Posted by foxnews

The U.S. Council for World Freedom aided rebels trying to overthrow the leftist government of Nicaragua. That landed the group in the middle of the Iran-Contra affair and in legal trouble with the Internal Revenue Service, which revoked the charitable organization's tax exemption.

The council created by retired Army Maj. Gen. John Singlaub was the U.S. chapter of the World Anti-Communist League, an international organization linked to former Nazi collaborators and ultra-right-wing death squads in Central America. After setting up the U.S. council, Singlaub served as the international league's chairman.

Singlaub said McCain was a supporter but not an active member.

"McCain was a new guy on the block learning the ropes," Singlaub said. "I think I met him in the Washington area when he was just a new congressman. We had McCain on the board to make him feel like he wasn't left out. It looks good to have names on a letterhead who are well-known and appreciated.

McCain has said he resigned from the council in 1984 and asked in 1986 to have his name removed from the group's letterhead.

"I didn't know whether (the group's activity) was legal or illegal, but I didn't think I wanted to be associated with them," McCain said in a 1986 newspaper interview.

Singlaub does not recall any McCain resignation in 1984 or May 1986. Nor does Joyce Downey, who oversaw the group's day-to-day activities.

"That's a surprise to me," Singlaub said. "This is the first time I've ever heard that. There may have been someone in his office communicating with our office."

"I don't ever remember hearing about his resigning, but I really wasn't worried about that part of our activities, a housekeeping thing," said Singlaub. "If he didn't want to be on the board that's OK. It wasn't as if he had been active participant and we were going to miss his help. He had no active interest. He certainly supported us."

Months before the cutoff, top Reagan administration officials ramped up a secret White House-directed supply network run by National Security Council aide Oliver North, who relied on retired Air Force Maj. Gen. Richard Secord to carry out the operation. The goal was to keep the Contras operating until Congress could be persuaded to resume CIA funding.

Singlaub's private group became the public front for the secret White House activity.

"It was noted that they were trying to act as suppliers. It was pretty good cover for us," Secord, the field operations chief for the secret effort, said Tuesday in an interview.

The White House-directed network's covert arms shipments, financed in part by the Reagan administration's secret arms sales to Iran, exploded into the Iran-Contra affair in November 1986. The scandal proved to be the undoing of Singlaub's council.

The renewed attention over McCain's association with Singlaub's group comes as McCain's campaign steps up criticism of Obama's dealings with Ayers, now a college professor who co-founded the Weather Underground in the 1960s and years later worked with Obama on the board of an education reform group in Chicago. Ayers held a meet-the-candidate event at his home when Obama first ran for public office in the mid-1990s.

In McCain's case, he was a House member and a board member of Singlaub's council when the new congressman voted for military assistance to the Nicaraguan Contras, a CIA-organized guerrilla force. In 1984, Congress cut off military assistance to the rebels.

Months before the cutoff, top Reagan administration officials ramped up a secret White House-directed supply network run by National Security Council aide Oliver North, who relied on retired Air Force Maj. Gen. Richard Secord to carry out the operation. The goal was to keep the Contras operating until Congress could be persuaded to resume CIA funding.

Singlaub's private group became the public front for the secret White House activity.

"It was noted that they were trying to act as suppliers. It was pretty good cover for us," Secord, the field operations chief for the secret effort, said Tuesday in an interview.

The White House-directed network's covert arms shipments, financed in part by the Reagan administration's secret arms sales to Iran, exploded into the Iran-Contra affair in November 1986. The scandal proved to be the undoing of Singlaub's council.

In 1987, the Internal Revenue Service withdrew tax-exempt status from Singlaub's group because of its activities on behalf of the Contras.

Peter Kornbluh, co-author of "The Iran-Contra Scandal: A Declassified History," said the Council on World Freedom was crucial to diverting public attention from the Reagan White House's fundraising for the Contras.

Singlaub and the council publicly urged private support for the Contras, providing what Singlaub later called "a lightning rod" to explain how the rebels sustained themselves despite Congress' cutoff.

In October 1986, the secrecy of North's network unraveled after one of its planes was shot down over Nicaragua. One American crewman, Eugene Hasenfus, was captured by the Nicaraguan government. At first, Reagan administration officials lied by saying that the plane had no connection to the U.S. government and was part of Singlaub's operation.

"I resented it that reporters thought it was my plane. I don't run a sloppy operation," Singlaub told The AP.

In an interview last month, Downey, the full-time employee of Singlaub's council, said she has a clear memory of McCain resigning in 1986, but not earlier.

"It was during the time when the U.S. Council had been wrongly accused of being owners of the Hasenfus plane downed in Nicaragua," said Downey. "A couple of days after that, I was in Washington and called home to get messages from my mother. I returned that call and a staff person wanted to ask for the resignation of Congressman McCain."

When Hasenfus was shot down, McCain was in the final month of his first campaign for the U.S. Senate seat he still holds.

McCain's office responded quickly. McCain said he had resigned from the council in 1984. Further, McCain said that in May 1986 he asked the group to remove his name from the letterhead. McCain's office produced two letters from 1984 and 1986 to back his account.

The dates on the resignation letters in 1984 and May 1986 coincided with McCain election campaigns and increasingly critical public scrutiny of the World Anti-Communist League, the umbrella group Singlaub chaired.

http://elections.foxnews.com/2008/10...ra-connection/

[Z1NONLY]

Originally Posted by IIQuickSilverII

since you are playing a long lets see if you play along with this BS guilt by association crap...

http://elections.foxnews.com/2008/10...ra-connection/

Wat?

McCain was assosiated with an organization called World Anti-Communist League?

I am anti-communist myself. So I would think this organization was ok just by it's name. If I it turned out they were actually the Anti-American League, who bombed our capitol, or were otherwise bad people, I would bolt too.

I don't know what point you are trying to make.

McCain is Anti-Communist? That's not a bad thing. At least not in the republican party.

[Jeff92se]

LOL. Yeah, no big deal to have associations like that:

The council created by retired Army Maj. Gen. John Singlaub was the U.S. chapter of the World Anti-Communist League, an international organization linked to former Nazi collaborators and ultra-right-wing death squads in Central America. After setting up the U.S. council, Singlaub served as the international league's chairman.

[Act of God]

Considering even CNN is picking up the Ayers bit...I'd say its a little more than smear.

[Z MANIA]

This latest political move should really mean nothing to the average American. 20 years.... no 20 years!!!! he subsidized the anti-American, and teachings of hatred from his Pastor. Nothing could bring him back from the dead for me, after this came out. Maybe McCain has agreed not to continue to bring this up... and the main stream media won't try and bring down their man.... but how anyone can over look this man's personal belief system and vote for him just because of party lines is beyond me.

Flame suit on.