FactCheck.org: The Truth About McCain's ACORN Accusations | Newsweek Politics: Campaign 2008

ACORN Accusations

McCain makes exaggerated claims of "voter fraud." Obama soft-pedals his connections.

By Jess Henig | factcheck.org

Oct 18, 2008 | Updated: 10:33 a.m. ET Oct 19, 2008

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Summary
The McCain-Palin campaign accuses ACORN, a community activist group that operates nationwide, of perpetrating "massive voter fraud." It says Obama has "long and deep" ties to the group. We find both claims to be exaggerated. But we also find Obama has understated the extent of his work with the group.

Neither ACORN nor its employees have been found guilty of, or even charged with, casting fraudulent votes. What a McCain-Palin Web ad calls "voter fraud" is actually voter registration fraud. Several ACORN canvassers have been found guilty of faking registration forms and others are being investigated. But the evidence that has surfaced so far shows they faked forms to get paid for work they didn't do, not to stuff ballot boxes.

Obama's path has intersected with ACORN on several occasions – more often than he allowed in the final debate.

Analysis
We've received scores of e-mails asking us about Obama's connection to the community activist group Association of Community Organizers for Reform Now, or ACORN. A McCain-Palin ad released on the Web accuses Obama of having ties to the organization, which it says engages in "intimidation tactics," "massive voter fraud" and "pressuring banks to issue risky loans."

Destroying Democracy?
The McCain ad accuses ACORN of "massive voter fraud." In the final presidential debate, John McCain added that ACORN "is now on the verge of maybe perpetrating one of the greatest frauds in voter history in this country, maybe destroying the fabric of democracy." Sounds scary, but is it true?

McCain-Palin Web Ad: "ACORN"
McCain: I'm John McCain and I approve this message.

Announcer: Who is Barack Obama? A man with "a political baptism performed at warp speed." Vast ambition. After college, he moved to Chicago. Became a community organizer. There, Obama met Madeleine Talbot, part of the Chicago branch of ACORN. He was so impressive that he was asked to train the ACORN staff.

What did ACORN in Chicago engage in? Bullying banks. Intimidation tactics. Disruption of business. ACORN forced banks to issue risky home loans. The same types of loans that caused the financial crisis we're in today.

No wonder Obama's campaign is trying to distance him from the group, saying, "Barack Obama Never Organized with ACORN." But Obama's ties to ACORN run long and deep. He taught classes for ACORN. They even endorsed him for President.

But now ACORN is in trouble.

The Wall Street crisis was planned the night of Obama's meeting at Bill Ayres home to put Obama in The White House. Together they put a beautiful plan into place.

This Strategy was first elucidated in the 1966 issue of 'The Nation' Magazine by a pair of radical Socialist Columbia University professors, Richard Andrew Cloward and Frances Fox Piven.

David Horowitz summarizes it as:

"The strategy of forcing political change through an orchestrated crisis. The "Cloward-Piven Strategy" seeks to hasten the fall of Capitalism by overloading the Government bureaucracy with a flood of impossible demands, thus pushing society into crisis and economic collapse.
unquote

Obama begin with ACORN by funneling millions into their organization. He then trained ACORN to stage protests in banks to force them to issue risky loans or they would be threatened to face racial charges. ACORN was trained to intimidate financial institutions into giving ???Ninja??? loans to people with NO assets, NO job and NO income, who couldn???t afford these loans.

That caused the housing bubble two years ago it was by ACORN's actions they were able to destroy our credit system.

As this played out, D-Barney Frank and D-Chris Dodd were able to cover up the millions of improvident loans to these bad risky house buyers. And Barney Frank and his chums successfully were able to block all of President Bush's attempts to put a rein on this problem.

So Fannie & Freddie was forced to purchase all these failed subprime mortgages.

Then both Frank and Dodd denied that there were any problems, and refused the Bush Admin. requests to set up a regulatory agency to watch over Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and they were still pushing for these agencies to go even further in promoting sub-prime mortgage loans almost up to the 'minute they failed'.

Democrats then blamed Bush saying it happened on his watch knowing it would hurt the Republican Party in the election setting it up that Barack Obama could use this to his advantage.

Karl Marx once compared a Revolutionary struggle with the work of the mole, who sometimes burrows so far beneath the ground that he leaves no trace of his movement on the surface.

Barack Obama is that Marxist mole !

Member Comments

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Posted By: Debunked! @ 06/24/2009 8:23:52 AM

Im all in----it sounds like you are describing the Democratic Party as well!
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Posted By: I'm all in @ 06/23/2009 10:33:29 AM

The republican Party is truly an inclusive Party. It includes radical militia groups, racist hate groups, big businessmen who take down 50 mil a year while destroying their employees pension funds, tobacco companies that target kids for addiction, big drug companies that charge 20 times what they should for medicine, health insurance companies that bilk medicaid and have destroyed our health care and virtually every mal content in the country. Thank God those they include only add up to the minority.
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Posted By: Krohn @ 11/02/2008 11:25:35 PM

The Wall Street crisis was planned the night of Obama's meeting at Bill Ayres home to put Obama in The White House. Together they put a beautiful plan into place.

This Strategy was first elucidated in the 1966 issue of 'The Nation' Magazine by a pair of radical Socialist Columbia University professors, Richard Andrew Cloward and Frances Fox Piven.

David Horowitz summarizes it as:

"The strategy of forcing political change through an orchestrated crisis. The "Cloward-Piven Strategy" seeks to hasten the fall of Capitalism by overloading the Government bureaucracy with a flood of impossible demands, thus pushing society into crisis and economic collapse.
unquote

Obama begin with ACORN by funneling millions into their organization. He then trained ACORN to stage protests in banks to force them to issue risky loans or they would be threatened to face racial charges. ACORN was trained to intimidate financial institutions into giving ???Ninja??? loans to people with NO assets, NO job and NO income, who couldn???t afford these loans.

That caused the housing bubble two years ago it was by ACORN's actions they were able to destroy our credit system.

As this played out, D-Barney Frank and D-Chris Dodd were able to cover up the millions of improvident loans to these bad risky house buyers. And Barney Frank and his chums successfully were able to block all of President Bush's attempts to put a rein on this problem.

So Fannie & Freddie was forced to purchase all these failed subprime mortgages.

Then both Frank and Dodd denied that there were any problems, and refused the Bush Admin. requests to set up a regulatory agency to watch over Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and they were still pushing for these agencies to go even further in promoting sub-prime mortgage loans almost up to the 'minute they failed'.

Democrats then blamed Bush saying it happened on his watch knowing it would hurt the Republican Party in the election setting it up that Barack Obama could use this to his advantage.

Karl Marx once compared a Revolutionary struggle with the work of the mole, who sometimes burrows so far beneath the ground that he leaves no trace of his movement on the surface.

Barack Obama is that Marxist mole !