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HighDesertDJ
Trad climber
Arid-zona
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Oct 14, 2008 - 02:35am PT
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Wow look. Another opinion piece about Acorn and Obama. Still no actual journalism though. That simply MUST be because all journalists are liberals and totally in the tank for Obama.
http://marcambinder.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/10/a_lifetime_ago_sen_john.php
"A goldfish's lifetime ago, Sen. John McCain was happy to accept the honors and acclamation of the Service Employees International Union, People for the American Way, UNITE HERE -- and ACORN. Here he is, on Feb. 20, 2006, telling immigration rights activists at a rally in Miami that they "are what makes America special." ACORN co-sponsored the rally, and its volunteers surround McCain, and while there's no evidence that McCain ever formally teamed with the group, the video serves as a reminder that he did not mind being associated with them when the politics of the moment were different."
BONUS MATERIAL: Video footage of John McCain saying these things.
BTW Woody I'm still waiting for you to comment in the Obama hate threads about how McCain supporters only have bad things to say about Obama and no good things to say about McCain.
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Karl Baba
Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
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Oct 14, 2008 - 03:00am PT
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Funny that the right wing was so silent on voter fraud when districts with few hundred voters using electronic machines managed to submit thousands of Bush votes.
I think voter fraud should be aggressively punished in all its forms. That said
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2008/10/10
The Truth About ACORN's Voter Registration Drive
by Bertha Lewis and Steve Kest
Election Day is less than a month away, and our efforts to make sure that low-income and minority voters have a voice and vote on November 4th are in full swing. Unfortunately, just as we've seen in previous election cycles, the more success we have in empowering these voters, the more attacks we have to fend off from partisan forces making unfounded accusations to disparage our work and help maintain the status quo of an unbalanced electorate. We want to take this opportunity to separate the facts of our successes from the falsehoods of our attackers.
On Monday, October 6, as voter registration deadlines passed in most states, ACORN completed the largest, most successful nonpartisan voter registration drive in history. In partnership with the nonpartisan organization Project Vote, we helped register over 1.3 million low-income, minority, and young voters in a total of 21 states. Highlights of this success include:
We collected over 151,000 registrations in Florida, 153,000 in Pennsylvania, 215,000 in Michigan, and nearly 250,000 in Ohio.
An estimated 60-70 percent of our applicants are people of color.
At least HALF of all are registrations are from young people between 18-29.
We are proud of this unprecedented success, and grateful to everyone who supported us in this massive effort, from our funders and partners to the literally thousands of hardworking individuals across the country who dedicated themselves to the cause and conducted the difficult work of registering 1.3 million Americans, one voter at a time.
And this work is far from over: now begins our effort mobilize these new voters around local and national issues, getting them to the polls and helping to channel their commitment and conviction into an ongoing movement for change in our communities.
As The Nation pointed out recently, ACORN's success in registering millions of low-income and minority voters has made it "something of a right-wing bogeyman." Though ACORN believes that the right to vote is not, and should never be, a partisan issue, attacks from groups threatened by our historic success continue to come, motivated by partisan politics and often perpetuated by the media without full investigation of the facts. As a result, there have been a few recent stories about investigations of former ACORN workers for turning in incomplete, erroneous, or fraudulent voter registration applications. Predictably, partisan forces have tried to use these isolated incidents to incite fear of the "bogeyman" of "widespread voter fraud." But we want to take this opportunity to set the record straight and tell you a few facts to show how these incidents really exemplify everything that ACORN is doing right:
Fact: ACORN has implemented the most sophisticated quality-control system in the voter engagement field, but in almost every state we are required to turn in ALL completed applications, even the ones we know to be problematic.
Fact: ACORN flags incomplete, problem, or suspicious cards when we turn them in, but these warnings are often ignored by election officials. Often these same officials then come back weeks or months later and accuse us of deliberately turning in phony cards.
Fact: Our canvassers are paid by the hour, not by the card, so there is NO incentive for them to falsify cards. ACORN has a zero-tolerance policy for deliberately falsifying registrations, and in the relatively rare cases where our internal quality controls have identified this happening we have fired the workers involved and turned them in to election officials and law-enforcement.
Fact: No charges have ever been brought against ACORN itself. Convictions against individual former ACORN workers have been accomplished with our full cooperation, using the evidence obtained through our quality control and verification processes.
Fact: Voter fraud by individuals is extremely rare, and incredibly difficult. There has never been a single proven case of anyone, anywhere, casting an illegal vote as a result of a phony voter registration. Even if someone wanted to influence the election this way, it would not work.
Fact: Most election officials have recognized ACORN's good work and praised our quality control systems. Even in the cities where election officials have complained about ACORN, the applications in question represent less than 1% of the thousands and thousands of registrations ACORN has collected.
Fact: Our accusers not only fail to provide any evidence, they fail to suggest a motive: there is virtually no chance anyone would be able to vote fraudulently, so there is no reason to deliberately submit phony registrations. ACORN is committed to ensuring that the greatest possible numbers of people are registered and allowed to vote, so there is also NO incentive to "disrupt the system" with phony cards.
Fact: Similar accusations were made, and attacks launched, against ACORN and other voter registration organizations in 2004 and 2006. These attacks were not only groundless, they have since been exposed as part of the U.S. Attorneygate scandal and revealed to be part of a systematic partisan agenda of voter suppression.
These are the facts, and the truth is that a relatively small group of political operatives are trying to orchestrate hysteria about "voter fraud" and manufacture public outrage that they can use to further suppress the votes of millions of low-income and minority Americans.
These tactics are nothing new, and history has shown that they will come to nothing. We'll continue to weather the storm, as we've done for years, and we'll continue to share the truth about our work and express pride about our accomplishments.
Most importantly, we want to assure you that this good work continues, unabated and undeterred. ACORN will not be intimidated, we will not be provoked, and in this important moment in history we will not allow anyone to distract us from these vital efforts to empower our constituencies and our communities to speak for themselves. If the partisan political machines are afraid of low-income and minority voters, they're going to have to do a lot better than coming after ACORN.
After all, there are now at least 1.3 million more of them, and they will not be silenced. They're taking an interest, and taking a stand, and they'll be taking their concerns to the voting booth in November.
And ACORN will be here, to make sure that the voices of these Americans are heard, on Election Day and for every day to come.
Bertha Lewis is a senior organizer for ACORN. Steve Kest is ACORN's Executive Director. ACORN, the 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.
++=
Personally, I wonder if this Acorn whining is just to get us so we won't riot when the real voter fraud happens in a few weeks. Will democrats wait 10 hours to vote again in some states while in GOP areas people just waltz in?
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Mighty Hiker
Social climber
Vancouver, B.C.
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Oct 14, 2008 - 03:08am PT
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Perhaps you should consider doing things as we do here. Non-partisan appointed officials are in charge of enumerating and registering voters, and conducting the vote. Representatives of all parties can oversee the process. Works just fine. In the rare case of a contested election, there is a judicial recount.
I'll vote later today and report back on how it went.
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John Moosie
climber
Beautiful California
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Oct 14, 2008 - 03:10am PT
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"Non-partisan appointed officials"
How to you find non partisan officials and who appoints them?
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Karl Baba
Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
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Oct 14, 2008 - 03:23am PT
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http://blackboxvoting.org/
This site is concerned with hinky voting of all sorts. Good to check em out.
peace
Karl
Here's a bit more
Velvet Revolution today issued a press release calling for Republican candidate John McCain to fire computer expert Michael Connell from his campaign for covering up alleged election manipulations of Karl Rove and others. Mr. Connell, the GOP’s top computer expert, was subpoenaed based on a September 19th court order to testify under oath in an Ohio federal lawsuit looking into serious allegations that Mr. Rove has directed a strategy to illegally manipulate elections through the use of computer technology. Rather than cooperate in the investigation, Mr. Connell hired attorneys close to the Bush/Cheney Administration and refused to appear for the deposition arguing client (GOP) confidentiality. Those attorneys have said that they will do everything possible to keep Mr. Connell from testifying before the November general election.
Mr. Connell’s refusal to comply with a federal subpoena looking into credible evidence that the upcoming presidential election will be manipulated is at odds with John McCain’s promise to run a clean campaign. Another GOP cyber security expert, Stephen Spoonamore, has stated that Mr. Connell has vast experience and knowledge of the GOP computer networks at issue in the federal lawsuit.Mr. Connell has admitted to Mr. Spoonamore that in his zeal to 'save the unborn' he may have helped others who have compromised elections.”
Cliff Arnebeck, the Ohio election attorney who issued the subpoena, said Friday that he is aggressively moving to enforce the subpoena. “Mr. Connell has information about how the votes are tabulated in key states in the upcoming election. In order to ensure that the election is fair and accurate, Mr. Connell needs to testify under oath and pursuant to a lawful subpoena about how these votes are tabulated, whether the tabulation will be compromised and whether anyone has directed him to compromise those tabulations.”
According to federal filings, Mr. Connell is working for John McCain to help him win the election. VR believes that until Mr. Connell testifies under oath about his apparent knowledge of election manipulations, he should not be working for Mr. McCain. If he does, the McCain campaign will appear to be in league with Mr. Connell to cover up criminal conduct and engaging in election tampering. This will call into question the results of the November election and again cast a shadow over our election process.
What does another GOP computer expect say about mcConnell under oath?
http://www.opednews.com/articles/Deposition-by-Spoonamore-A-by-Stephen-Spoonamore-080919-58.html
"..IN REGARD to Mr. Mike Connell.
Mr. Connell and I share a mutual interest in democracy building, freedom of speech and religion worldwide. We have mutually participated in activity to forward this goal. At a meeting in London last year, and again at a Lunch in Washington, DC, Mike and I briefly discussed voting security. While he has not admitted to wrongdoing, and in my opinion he is not involved in voting theft, Mike clearly agrees that the electronic voting systems in the US are not secure. He further made a statement that he is afraid that some of the more ruthless partisans of the GOP, may have exploited systems he in part worked on for this purpose.
Mr. Connell builds front end applications, user interfaces and web sites. Knowing his team and their skills, I find it unlikely they would be the vote thieves directly. I believe however he knows who is doing that work, and has likely turned a blind eye to this activity. Mr. Connell is a devout Catholic. He has admitted to me that in his zeal to 'save the unborn' he may have helped others who have compromised elections. He was clearly uncomfortable when I asked directly about Ohio 2004. .."
Sorry to post all this stuff but voter fraud pisses me off and I think the accusations trying to pin it on the Dems is 90% distraction from the real crimes planned.
Peace
Karl
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HighDesertDJ
Trad climber
Arid-zona
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Oct 14, 2008 - 03:30am PT
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Hey look. Another LEB troll post. Tell us about your cat again.
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jbar
Mountain climber
Inside my head
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Oct 14, 2008 - 03:50am PT
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It's great to read what the media says about voter fraud but I'm still wondering what I should do with this letter I got from one of the candidates suggesting I vote twice. He sent it to my present address reminding me that I am still a registered voter in my previous state if I should want to cast an absentee ballot. I thought of casting that vote against him just for sending me that crap but it's still illegal. Meanwhile the same senator's party recently registered all of the inmates at my local jail to vote. A real public service that. It's just heartwarming to see how much they care.
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HighDesertDJ
Trad climber
Arid-zona
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Oct 14, 2008 - 04:00am PT
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Yes LEB that's the good stuff. I realize it's hard for you to think that someone "pays attention" and "reads the news" and when they don't have actual facts and info they "use the google" and "read more articles."
I get the impression from reading your posts that you are either:
A. A troll robot programmed to post slight variations of the same posts repeatedly on different (or even the same) threads based on their title
or
B. A terrible, terrible troll.
I'm having a hard time believing that someone can code a trolling robot that is as bad as you, so I'm going with option B.
So tell me, troll, who exactly do I consult? I mean often my posts follow yours by no more than one or two minutes. What Great Committee am I using as my posting oracle and how do they manage answers at 1 or 2 in the morning with such efficiency?
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Karl Baba
Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
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Oct 14, 2008 - 04:05am PT
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"Seems to me that Obama has a string of seedy associates. If it is not ACORN then it is William Ayers (terrorism anyone?)"
LEB, do some research on the whole Ayers thing will ya? The guy was named by the city of Chicago "Citizen of the year in 1997" and has worked with MANY local republican officials and Chicago Republicans nor Chicago Democrats have never made an issue of it before. The "terrorism" was when Obama was 8.
Meanwhile McCain was bombing civilians in Hanoi while we killed 2-3 million people in a country that never posed ANY threat to us, that NEVER attacked us, and in a war that was basically the aftermath of French Colonialism in Indochina (Vietnam)
So many crimes were committed in that war the Henry Kissinger (whom Palin recently associated with) is a wanted man in certain countries as a war criminal.
All the while McCain's involvement with Keating was actually DURING the period when Keating was involved in the very same kind of crimes that recently brought down our whole financial system and 23000 people were defrauded of their investments.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=95442902
"..Regardless of his background, it was never a problem for anyone — including Republicans and Chicago's most powerful business leaders — to work with Ayers on Chicago's public schools. In fact, Ayers is widely respected in the field of urban education.
"It was never a concern by any of us in the Chicago school reform movement that he had led a fugitive life years earlier," said former Illinois state Republican Rep. Diana Nelson, who worked with both Obama and Ayers over the years. "It's ridiculous. There is no reason at all to smear Barack Obama with this association. It's nonsensical, and it just makes me crazy. It's so silly."
Nelson says her fellow Republicans "might snort when they hear the name Bill Ayers, because they know he comes from a wealthy family, they know he became a radical activist early in his life ... but beyond just snorting, I don't think anyone gives it another thought."
"I don't remember ever hearing anyone raise concerns or questions or concerns about [Ayers'] background," says Anne Hallett, who has worked closely with Ayers on the Annenberg Challenge grant and with Obama on education and other community and legislative matters. "And that included everybody I was engaged with," including prominent Republicans, and corporate and civic leaders in Chicago, Hallett adds..."
Peace
Karl
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graniteclimber
Trad climber
Nowhere
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Oct 14, 2008 - 04:12am PT
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Woody, there is a reason why that link you provided is to the OPINION page. It's all opinion and emotion with very few facts.
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jbar
Mountain climber
Inside my head
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Oct 14, 2008 - 04:29am PT
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LEB - It's called "Democracy behind bars" go figure.
So tired of all the crap. Both Candidates should be held accountable for who they chose to associate with. Doesn't matter if the guy was a terrorist when I was 8 if he didn't do the time for doing his admitted crime and he is unrepentant. Look, were not talking about someone who was caught drunk driving or something. The guy and his entire family are anti Americans. It is completely relevant that their association with a candidate for President of the United States should be questioned. Has Obama been to his home? Did Obama endorse his book? Etc. Politicians are crooked, money hungry slaves to bureaucracy. Any of the foul beasts willing to deal with a turd like Ayers should be discredited. Do we or Do we not have the right to peaceful demonstration in this country. We are lucky to have a means in which to enact change. Terrorism is a cowardly display of petty violence. What is the statute of limitation on attempting to kill innocent people anyway?
Oh yeah and Journalism 2000's = Opinion.
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dogtown
climber
Where I once was,I think?
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Oct 14, 2008 - 05:02am PT
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Acorn is the paramilitary wing of the sub prime melt down.
More commonly known as Obama brown shirts.
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graniteclimber
Trad climber
Nowhere
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Oct 14, 2008 - 05:28am PT
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ACORN responds. It should be easy for Faux News and the others to check whether they are telling the truth or not.
ACORN Statement: Nevada Secretary of State 'Stunt' Serves No Useful Purpose
Last update: 8:56 p.m. EDT Oct. 7, 2008
WASHINGTON, Oct 07, 2008 /PRNewswire-USNewswire via COMTEX/ -- On Oct. 7, ACORN (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now) interim Chief Organizer Bertha Lewis issued the following statement in response to the raid of ACORN's office in Las Vegas:
"Over the past year, ACORN has worked hard to help over 80,000 people in Clark County register to vote. As part of our nonpartisan voter registration program, we have reviewed all the applications submitted by our canvassers. When we have identified suspicious applications, we have separated them out and flagged them for election officials. We have zero tolerance for fraudulent registrations. We immediately dismiss employees we suspect of submitting fraudulent registrations.
For the past 10 months, any time ACORN has identified a potentially fraudulent application, we turn that application into election officials separately and offer to provide election officials with the information they would need to pursue an investigation or prosecution of the individual.
Election officials routinely ignored this information and failed to act. In early July, ACORN asked to meet with election officials to express our concerns that they were not acting on information ACORN had presented to them. ACORN met with Clark County elections officials and a representative of the Secretary of State on July 17th. ACORN pleaded with them to take our concerns about fraudulent applications seriously. One week later, elections officials asked us to provide them with a second copy of what we had previously provided to them. ACORN responded by giving election officials copies of 46 "problem application packages," which involved 33 former canvassers.
On September 23, ACORN had received a subpoena dated September 19th requesting information on 15 employees, all of whom had been included in the packages we had previously submitted to election officials. ACORN provided our personnel records on these 15 employees on September 29.
Today's raid by the Secretary of State's Office is a stunt that serves no useful purpose other than discredit our work registering Nevadans and distracting us from the important work ahead of getting every eligible voter to the polls."
ACORN is the nation's largest community organization of low- and moderate-income families, with over 400,000 member families across the country. Since 1970, *ACORN* has taken action and won victories on such issues as better housing, living wages for low-wage workers, more investment in our communities, and better public schools.
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Tomcat
Trad climber
Chatham N.H.
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Oct 14, 2008 - 08:54am PT
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OK so,now I know what a "Community Organizer" is.
I like the part where it's "non- partisan",but they only solicit minorities and people under 25.They could give a sh#t about anyone else.
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Tomcat
Trad climber
Chatham N.H.
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Oct 14, 2008 - 09:26am PT
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Do you think that might be because a lot of the evidence has surfaced since 2006,or is that too rational an approach for you?
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Chris2
Trad climber
The Gunks to Joshua Tree
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Oct 14, 2008 - 09:30am PT
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"This may well be the largest organized voter fraud effort in our history."
Absurd accusation considering the antics in Florida 2000.
LEB, in Flordia 2000 there was something called the Voter Purge List created by the Secretary of States office. It was supposed to contain the names of convicted felons to keep them from voting. The list was not “complete enough”, so names were added. Individuals who’s names were spelled similar to the Felons on the list were added.
It was estimated that 20,000 individual were turned away from the polls because of this list, however there is no factual information to base this on. However in one county, of its 693 purged voters only 35 were convicted felons.
“It is not who you vote for, it is who counts the votes.”
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dirtbag
climber
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Oct 14, 2008 - 09:30am PT
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Oh yeah, 2006 Tomcat. That was how many years after Obama was a community organizer?
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Tomcat
Trad climber
Chatham N.H.
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Oct 14, 2008 - 09:37am PT
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Are you denying Obama was connected to ACORN dirt? Are we going to pretend that soliciting only low income minorities and the young is non-partisan?
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