Obama and Acorn: Community organizers, phony voters, and your tax dollars.

Wall Street Journal - Oct. 14, 2008

At the recent Emmy Awards, historian Laura Linney averred that America's Founders had been "community organizers" -- like Barack Obama. Too bad they aren't like that any more. Mr. Obama's kind of organizers work at Acorn, the militant advocacy group that is turning up in reports about voter fraud across the country. Acorn -- the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now -- has been around since 1970 and boasts 350,000 members. We've written about them for years, but Acorn is now getting more attention as John McCain's campaign makes an issue of the fraud reports and Acorn's ties to Mr. Obama. It's about time someone exposed this shady outfit that uses government dollars to lobby for larger government.
Acorn uses various affiliated groups to agitate for "a living wage," for "affordable housing," for "tax justice" and union and environmental goals, as well as against school choice and welfare reform. It was a major contributor to the subprime meltdown by pushing lenders to make home loans on easy terms, conducting "strikes" against banks so they'd lower credit standards.
But the organization's real genius is getting American taxpayers to foot the bill. ... More...

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

WALL: Of values and virtues - By Tara Wall - Oct. 14, 2008 Washington Times

"Community organizer ACORN - which wants us to focus on the millions of "correct" signatures accumulated during voter registration drives over the years - has been an assault on the American voting process. Not only are there several cases where ACORN workers have been convicted of voter fraud, but no less than a dozen new investigations are taking place right now (including at least 5,000 questionable signatures that came in all at once right before voter registration deadlines).

How is it that an organization which at one time employed Barack Obama as legal counsel endorsed his candidacy and to whom the presidential candidate's campaign has paid over $800,000 - can, with a straight face, not only claim to be non-partisan but expect anyone to believe their get-out-the-vote efforts are above board? ... More ...