Very true; and it doesn't take a genius to figure out why Obama wants this kept as quiet as possible.

http://www.acorn.org/index.... Here is the web site,I always like to check these things out for myself.

Interesting political hit piece, sioux about the "radical" group ACORN.  High on rhetoric, conjecture, surmise and innuendo and low on actual facts.   Of course it comes from the National Review, and  anyone who has read the NR for any amount of time knows that "radical" is a word they use to describe any position to the left of theirs.

Meanwhile, the New York Times has an interesting article on Senator McCain's ties to the gaming industry.  High on facts, low on rhetoric, conjecture, surmise and innuendo.  The McCain camp has already announced that true believers should disregard it since the Times is "in the tank" with Obama.  Apparently, being "in the tank" offsets actual facts.

Why does the "right wing" hate ACORN.   Its obvious form the subtext of the article. ACORN gets poor people to register and vote.  Thats what the Tories of the National Review really hate, the "wrong" kind of people having a say in political matters.

Sometimes, I feel obliged to remind everyone that if had been up to conservatives (particularly the rich conservatives) we would never have declared independence in 1776.

http://vids.myspace.com/ind...

BTW~ ACORN is all over the world.

ACORN doesn't seem that radical to me, Sioux.  I dunno--maybe I'm just too mellow today.  Macaroni and cheese and gingerbread cake will do that to ya. : )

Ya know I really didnt expect you guys to find fault with this..granted its long and I doubt many of you even read the whole article...more likely than not you.just ran a quick scan figured out a witty reply and came back to post it..

gopher: particularly the rich conservatives) we would never have declared independence in 1776.

and slavery would have been where if not for a republican named Abraham Lincoln?? whats your point??

Sioux - the Republican party of the 1860's is not the Republican party of today.

I'd also like to point out that Lincoln never freed all the slaves.  The Emancipation Proclimation only freed those slaves who resided in the states of the rebellion. Of course, there were 5 slave states which stayed in the Union - Maryland, West Virginia, Deleware, Missouri and Kentucky.  The slaves in these states were never freed while Lincoln was alive.

Actually, I did read the whole article from start to finish.  As I said, I found it high on rhetoric and low on verifiable facts.  I just now checked on their source Sol Stern and City Journal.  Well, it turns out that Stern is the editor of City Journal which is a magazine put out by the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research which is a right wing think tank co-founded by William Casey, Reagan's CIA chief, the one who first financed Osama bin Laden and ran Iran-Contra.  In other words, Stern is not by any means an unbiased journalist.   I was totally unable to verify the allegation concerning scaring the wife of the mayor of Baltimore.  There was a lot on the internet, but everyting I found traced back to the Stern article or the NR article.  There was nothing on the Baltimore Sun website about it.

What I found most interesting is this from 2003:

On Monday, May 5th, ACORN will be launching a major national campaign to end predatory lending abuses carried out by Wells Fargo and its subsidiaries and affiliates. As you know, ACORN has been engaged in an historic 4-year campaign to curtail predatory lending in America. That campaign has seen new state and local laws enacted, major corporate, Wall Street, and secondary market reforms, and heightened attention from regulators and policy makers. Now we turn our attention to a major lender that continues to make abusive loans while hiding behind the claim that major banks are not a source of predatory loans.

In Florida, we are launching this Wells Fargo campaign with a rally at the Tampa offices of Wells Fargo Financial. Wells Fargo Financial is the subprime arm of the corporation, and the source of many of the companies' more abusive loans. If you live in the area, we hope you can join us (see information below). If you cannot, know that you will be able to follow developments of this campaign at www.acorn.org. ACORN will also be releasing a report on Monday detailing some of the abusive practices of Wells Fargo. We thank you for your support.

Hmmmm....think ACORN might have been right about something?

siouxcityranch. You can yell it from the roof tops. These people just refuse to see how dangerous this man is. No on Obama! Redistribution of ones wealth, is theft. Plain, and Simple. Did you click onto the other article that was at the bottom of that page? I heard just this morning that acorn was registering people to vote, that are not legal to do so. This is corruption at the very least. This election will be drawn out a whole lot longer than the hanging chad debacle, and it will have been brought on by the pro illegal groups, as well as these folks.  IMO if you don't have legal ID, then you shouldn't be able to vote. With all the money that is being spent on collecting these signatures, they could spend the bucks to get their so called poor folks that can't afford an ID, an ID card.This whole election cycle is anything but legal, or the American way. These are the same people that have the nerve to call us racists. It just doesn't matter how much money you throw at the ghetto, those folks will remain ghetto.

 These people just refuse to see how dangerous this man is. No on Obama! Redistribution of ones wealth, is theft. Plain, and Simple.

I'll be chuckling when you're forced to eat your words in a few years.

Stockton Record just endorsed Obama.   Already.   Its first Democratic presidential endorsement since FDR.

http://www.recordnet.com/ap...

OMG, my mom (who had a personal vendetta against LBJ and always voted Republican) loved the Record.  My dad - a Yellow Dog Democrat - couldn't stand the paper and got his own subscription to the SF Chronicle to offset the propaganda.

Let's see if I can understand this redistribution of wealth thing.  I inherited a couple of acres and thought to plant it in taters.  You know, to feed the family and all.  After a lot of hard plowing and turning the soil and weeding and fertilizing and watering, the plants began to grow.  Thanks to a really good year weather wise which  I had no control of and just benefited from,  I had a bumper crop of taters.

The gumment man came along and say hey, you have way more taters than you need so we're gonna take some for the gumment and some for those folks who are needy.  Oh, and some for the people who  don't want to work but are hungry too.  You can keep what we don't distribute even though no one else contributed to this tater patch.

Is that kinda how redistribution of wealth works?

Is that kinda how redistribution of wealth works?

Not currently, no.

Currently, you give your taters to the guys at the top (who have plenty of their own taters) year after year, and they give you some back if they feel like it while grumbling that they need it more, dammit, if the economy is going to grow.

We're hoping to change that, so they have to give up some spuds too and you can keep more of yours.  Considering the size of your spud patch, you should be on the receiving end of an Obama administration.  90+ percent of taxpayers will be.

Then they won't take my taters and give them to people who don't work and are on the dole?  They won'y take my taters and fund programs that I don't want to see in place?  Is that the way it works?

If I start buying up land and grow more and more taters, maybe add in some carrots and peas and due to exceptional weather and luck I get a windfall bumper crop, will I still get to keep that 90% you mentioned?

I'm getting educated here.

Nancy, my late wife was one of those "people who don't work and are on the dole."

If you'll give me your address privately, I'll compensate you for the potatoes which were forcibly taken from you on her behalf, if you in return will pay me the potatoes which were forcibly taken from me and used to kill Americans and Iraqis in a war we didn't have to fight.

You're smarter than this and better than this.  Just because your side picked a horrible candidate and brought the country to the brink of ruin--making a mockery of the horrible sacrifices necessary to fix the problem as the Republan leadership tries to find sacrificial goats to vote for the bailout bill and then play politics with it.  It's a horrible thing that our choices appeared to be to cough up hundreds of billions of dollars or precipitate another depression just because Republicans cannot be trusted to govern in the nation's interests.

Civilized countries *DO* take care of those who can't work.  I used to think I lived in one.  We'll see whether I still do over the first four years of President Obama's term.  I have no illusions that the Republan politicians who survive the November deluge will be working in *MY*  best interests, though.  They are, without any exception that I can see, thugs.

And you have never farmed, "luck" does not play in to it~ until  your "luck runs" out.Then you lose your shirt and a big corporate business buys you out.

I went straight to the "radical" web site~All I can say is :anyone considering running sioux for office remember me. We are about as closely tied and I have as much a "radical" past as ACORN.

The dangerous one for this country is Sen. McCain.

RF, don't take your personal experience and use it to chastise me when you know exactly what I meant.  You have NEVER seen me say anyone should be denied help when needed

  That was low and uncalled for and I'm really surprised at you for it.

RF~ I hear you.But try to come take my taters... we cremated both sons,so all they will get is ashes.I worked hard for my share of taters as did you ,my friend.

Sage, I know you're from a farming family but I've seen too many farmers say they got too much rain this year or too little.  There was mold from the moisture etc.  Luck does have something to do with it  otherwise you'd never hear farmers say they had a bad year.

Besides, it was for example not for actual crop production.

But I think you knew that.
.

What REALLY pisses me off is that we can't have a discussion lately without the personal attack or straying on topic.  I was asking a question to see what redistribution of wealth meant to the left and how they think it would affect people.  I could sit and listen to some of you rant on and on about it and never figure out what you're talking about.  I put in in very simple terms, maybe too simple since I was using a folksy way to get you to explain yourself and in the end you drag i wifes illness and accusing me of something I never said or meant.  Shame on you for that.  You also had to drag it down to Bush and the war when I THOUGHT  we were talking about the redistribution of wealth.

I've disagreed with you more than agreed but at least you were civil....lately that seems to be a thing long gone. 

Nancy, what is low and uncalled for is the politics of personal destruction which have been waged in this campaign *WHEN WE HAVE REAL PROBLEMS TO SOLVE* and those problems were *CREATED BY THE PEOPLE YOU&nb sp;VOTED FOR*.

When the country's tax mess is reduced to fairy tales about potatoes.  I'm bloody well sick and tired of it.

You want to pretend that your potatoes are being given to people who aren't worthy of them.  You're absolutely right about that.  They're being given to people at the very top of the income ladder in this country and they've been steadily siphoned out of the middle class in order to do so. 

Damned right I'm angry.  I'll be angry when the bailout bill is voted on in Congress.  I'll be angry when the Republicans play politics with the vote in hopes of hurting the grownups who have once again cleaned up George W. Bush's mess.  I'll be angry when McCain fails to show up for the vote as he's failed to show up for every single vote since May.  I'll be angry next year after Obama's inauguration as the Republicans try to cause economic trouble deliberately in order to tie Obama's hands fiscally.

I'm angry that we're forced to risk taxpayer money to bail out bankers who should be reduced to panhandling in the streets but instead will enjoy their multimillion-dollar incomes for having brought us to the brink.

I'm angry that empty political diaries like this one still circulate this late in the day, when it's been shown that McCain's campaign has been run by lobbyists who *GOT US INTO THIS MESS* in the first place.  Who the 7734 do you think is advising the old geezer on economics?  Phil Gramm.  And what did he propose to help us through the crisis?  A tax cut for the people who *GOT US INTO THIS MESS.*  

I'm angry that this state apparently harbors a large minority of people who think that basic civil rights is an issue that should be put to a vote.

I'm angry that McCain has pulled the kind of juvenile political stunt that he did and MaryLee Shrider writes about the freaking *TILTED KILT*.    And that the Californian does not offer a left-leaning political blog which can show her how it should be done.

And I'm angry enough to have used McBush's real name throughout so that no one can humorously mistake exactly which old fool I'm talking about. 

And now, I'm going to work angry.  I hope the customers will forgive me. 

That's not "luck"~ that is nature. You are the one who said they were done with diplomacy on these blogs~ not me.

ACORN Workers Indicted For Alleged Voter Fraud

http://www.kmbc.com/politic...

Helluva bunch for Bark Hussein to hitch his wagon to.

" ACORN routinely says it will clean up its act. Yet, given its decade-long history of voter fraud, embezzlement, and misuses of taxpayer funds, ACORN's pattern of fraud can no longer be dismissed as a series of 'unfortunate events.' "

http://www.marketwatch.com/...

Congressional testimony from a non-profit, non-partison organization, Consumer Rights League.

"ACORN admits that they had a case of voter fraud happen this week in Seminole County..."

http://www.abc-7.com/articl...

The Republican message is always the same, they claim that the democrats are trying to take money from you, a "worthy" person and give it to someone else who is "unworthy".   This is an emotional argument that has very little to do with the actual facts.  

All taxation involves a redistribution of weath.  Social Security involved a redistribution from those presently employed to those who over the required ages and otherwise qualify.  However, each persons present benefits have little to do with their past contributions.

A high-salaried person who makes maximum contributions every year, retires at 65, and drops dead on the golf course three months later receives much less in benefits that he pays into the system.

A person who received minimum wage all of his working life, retires at 65 and lives to be 100 receives much more than he ever paid into the system.

Is this fair or unfair?  Should we scrap Social Security because it involves a redistribution of wealth?

Bad voter applications found

Clerks see fraudulent, duplicate forms from group

"Several municipal clerks across the state are reporting fraudulent and duplicate voter registration applications, most of them from a nationwide community activist group working to help low- and moderate-income families.

The majority of the problem applications are coming from the group ACORN, Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, which has a large voter registration program among its many social service programs. ACORN's Michigan branch, based in Detroit, has enrolled 200,000 voters statewide in recent months, mostly with the use of paid, part-time employees.

"There appears to be a sizeable number of duplicate and fraudulent applications," said Kelly Chesney, spokeswoman for the Michigan Secretary of State's Office. "And it appears to be widespread." " 

http://www.freep.com/apps/p...

Empty political diary, RF?  Not hardly.  Don't worry about the customers, they don't pay much attention to Walmart greeters anyway.

The gumment man came along and say hey, you have way more taters than you need so we're gonna take some for the gumment and some for those folks who are needy.  Oh, and some for the people who  don't want to work but are hungry too.  You can keep what we don't distribute even though no one else contributed to this tater patch.

You pick on the poor to make your point about you taxes? Why don't you pick on the RICH who don't want to work, like those that group of 40 attorneys in Texas who bought cheap farm land, not to farm, but to get the automatic subsidies in the millions of dollars for NOT farming it. They were already milionaires before they bought the property.  So you begrudge the poor that don't work because the goverment pays for the roof over their head so they won't be sleeping under the bridges and on the sidwalks of our cities and gives me a meager allowance to EAT on?  Truth is, Bill Clinton took a HUGE bit out of welfare and made "workfare" a near universal strategie in this country.  We know where the complains started with welfare. They started with the Great Depression when government had to help people. A lot of money was spent on that, and it has been reformed continuously from the days of Roosevelt and is simply not the problem it was any more.  Yet the legacy of the farmer with taters is still the go-to argument when the biggest MONEY problem we experience in the 21st century is greed (and the resulting econominc collapse for individuals) created by corporations.  It's WALL STREET this time around that is dragging us down, not welfare mothers.  Welfare mother don't have the the impact on any economy to put the entire nation on the brink of financial disaster.

Is if you're worried about them taters, you should be complaining about giving them to the greedy bastards that occupy Wall Street, not Skid Row. You can recover from Skid Row in a month. From Wall Street , you may NEVER recover.

My guess is that for every "unqualified" voter registered by ACORN, 10 qualified voters are intimidated out of voting by illegal Republican Party Tactics.

http://www.democrats.org/a/...

The  extremest right~"why they never resort to cheap shots,do they" bats my big ole' blues and pukes.
"Don't worry about the customers, they don't pay much attention to Walmart greeters anyway." Apparently it is only certain "seniors" they revere~but not hard working regular folks who are greeters at their favorite place to shop.

Phil Gramm, Phil Gramm, Phil Gramm.  He's the cause of all this financial mess according to you left tilting ignoramouses.  You know how Joe "Stand up Chuck!" Biden voted on Gramm-Leach-Bliley, RF?  He voted YEA,  stupid.  It passed 90-8, dildude.  Oh, and the "Leach" in the bill's title?  That's the guy that gave a speech at the Democrat's convention last month, Einstein. 

JHCROC HM, try to stick to the question will you?  I asked, for the umpteenth time, tell me in your opinion how distribution of wealth works.  I didn't say squat about the poor,  I was referring to the deadbeats who get on welfare and stay there as long as they can.  I was referring to people who can but will not work.  I was referring to people who claim disability and STILL go out and work under the table while my "taters" are feeding them.

This is a classic example of liberal double speak and the twisting of a very simple question that I dumbed down just about as far as I can dumb it and STILL none of you will answer it in a plain and simple way.

What EVER (as the kids say) ...keep up the rhetoric, it's a great way to keep from just answering the question.  I'm done here on this topic.....please don't reference your questions or responses to me on this particular blog because I won't be reading them.

Cripes !

drillnlift - for every negative issue you can find with a group like ACORN, I can find 5 which are directly related to the Republican Party.  I'd suggest spending some time in some of the State Archives.. especially in Florida.  You'd be surprised what you'll find.

Both sides of the political spectrum have ink on their hands - if you're going to point the finger, be willing to admit to all of the political scandals in this country.

Sage .... the whole "bats my whatever eyes" is getting old. Can you actually say what you mean without the coy metaphor?

So many threads are going on similar topics right now, and I choose to say this here.

I know of a man who has employed more people and paid more taxes than many here in Kern County. This man is ridiculed by his peers for his modest tastes, including what restaurants he patronizes and where he lodges when traveling. Drives his cars for over ten years, none of them foreign. Did his own yard work, even when it was seven acres. Put all his kids through college.

He started working at 9, got his first "real" job at a small market for $.75 an hour at 14, met another "okie" with ambition and the rest was history. 

He's now 67 years old and retired, and he just paid more in taxes last year than the 20 liberal bloggers here combined. And that's just how?

 "for every negative issue you can find with a group like ACORN, I can find 5 which are directly related to the Republican Party"

I listed only 4.  That leaves you 20.  Best get crackin' boy.

Edited. User comments have been deleted. In this case, it was "jesussmokedabowl. 

My comment to the troll's statement was:

Jesus ... have another bowl. And the troll deleted the original comment. Classy.

Vanity - I can respect your friend immensely for his sensibility.  The fact that he's retired and paying so much in taxes leads me to believe that he's done well for himself.  Tell me though, what is wrong with our Government giving everyone a chance at success, and then when one has achieved that success, requesting that they invest back into the very Government which helped them get to where they're at?  Whether it be through tax cuts, deductions or what have you, I'm sure that your friend has benefited from the Government in some way or another.  It could be something as simple as the regulatory system which allowed him to get his first business loan, for example.

drilnlift.. where to start, where to start...

Here.. how about a wikipedia list of scandals from both political parties, driving home my point that both sides are full of lies, deceit and manipulation:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wik...

Sage, and that's "just" how?

Yeah, I kinda figured you were blowing smoke.

FSG ... What? Your words.

The fact that he's retired and paying so much in taxes leads me to believe that he's done well for himself.  Tell me though, what is wrong with our Government giving everyone a chance at success, and then when one has achieved that success, requesting that they invest back into the very Government which helped them get to where they're at?

What the hell are you talking about? Did you even comprehend my comment? He is retired. And NO GOVERNMENT EVER GAVE HIM HIS FIRST (OR ANY) BUSINESS LOAN. HE NEVER NEEDED THE GOVERNMENT TO ASSIST HIM IN ANY WAY, UNLIKE YOU AND MOST SOCIALISTS HERE. 

Sorry, I almost never type in caps but I am stunned at the ignorance here.

FSG ... You don't need the government to succeed.   Well, on second thought, maybe YOU do.

So Vanity, did he ever get a business loan from a bank in general?  I'm trying to get more informaiton, because your original post didn't tell every part of the story.  I'd appreciate it if you didn't call me ignorant when you haven't presented all the facts.

The point I'm trying to get at is that our economy is not a true free-market, lasseiz-farre system, and instead has regulations imposed upon it to help make doing business fair for all parties.  These regulations most likely have had a positive influence on your friend's business in some way over the years.  He might not have ever received government assistance, but that doesn't mean that legislation and regulation hasn't helped him out over the years.  For example, the Robber Barons of the late 19th century were able to beat out competition through the creation of monopolies.  Thanks to anti-trust laws, your friend didn't have to worry about his business losing out to a monopoly.

Therefore, in a way, in order to give everyone a fair chance, we do need the government to help monitor the system, allowing for businesses to thrive and prosper.  In fact, depending on what kind of business your friend ran, it's possible that he received tax benefits.  But once again, I don't know the answer to that because your initial statements weren't all that informative.

Does he complain about the tax he's currently paying? Honestly.. I'm just asking, you don't have to get all crazy on me.

I'd also like to point out that Lincoln never freed all the slaves.

Lincoln, contrary to what the history books portray him as, was no friend to the black man. At one point, he considered sending all of the slaves back to Africa.

Stockton Record just endorsed Obama

Stockton has a newspaper?

Well, Acta.. that's partially true and partially false.  When originally running for POTUS, Lincoln wasn't a friend to the black man, running on a platform of keeping slavery legal, but opposing of it's expansion further west into the new territories, more due to the political imbalance it would create than for any other reason.

However, during the Civil War, he changed his mind and slowly became an abolitionist.  I'm pretty sure that had he not been assassinated, he would have abolished slavery by 1866.

FSG, first of all, I'm not "getting all crazy on" you.

If you cared to acknowledge the young age that he began to work and my subsequent commentary, you would see that it is really quite simple.

Everything you have cited regarding markets, systems and regulations currently in place did nothing but  put independents out of business in the last twenty years.

If you seriously have to ask a man who has worked 18 hours a day for over 55-some odd years if he "complains" about the current taxes then you really are a socialist.

Nancy? Riiight. You'll be back

She means this thread in particular, O Doobied One.

Vanity - I think you need to take a few moments to relax.  You have a lot of pent up anger, and it's really showing.  I'm merely trying to get the facts before coming to a conclusion, yet you're completely over-reacting and making a lot of negative assumptions. 

It's not that simple. I started working around the same age mowing lawns and weeding flowerbeds.  At 16 I went to work at a local restaraunt, and then subsequently worked my way through college.  I've instilled a very hard work ethic, and I've always taken on new challenges in the workplace, showing both an enthusiasm to learn as well as the enthusiam to lead.  Even though I have a boss and a company I work for, my current position is pretty much autonomous and I make my own decisions concerning my future business enterprises.

So, while I'm not exactly like your friend, I've worked hard for the majority of my life thus-so-far, and I understand the value of my own money.  However, I also realize that there are times when I must resort to help, especially when a crisis situaiton arises of which I have no control over.  I've personally dealt with a major famiy crisis early on in my marriage, and I had no choice but to ask for government assistance so that I could be provide for my family, even whilst I work.  So while I've busted my butt to get where I'm at, I recognize the need to have a safety net available for the good of all.  So why not allow for those who need a little help to get that help, and ask those who have no problem paying for it to give back to their community?  

A great example is that I was loaned quite a bit of money from my home church in Florida due to this emergency, with the expectation that I'd one day contribute back to that fund so that someone else could benefit from the aid.  Of course, it's not exactly the same as taxes, but the point is that we should be willing and able to help our fellow man if we can afford it.  Sometimes that means contributing more than someone else. 

I'm not a socialist, and I'm quite honestly insulted that you would be so crass to suggest such a thing.  I've been trying to have a civil dialogue with you, yet you constantly disrespect me. 

Sage .... the whole "bats my whatever eyes" is getting old. Can you actually say what you mean without the coy metaphor?

No, she can't. Typing a clear and concise statement isn't exactly her area of expertise, as I'm sure you've noticed.

FSG, perhaps YOU should relax. Interesting that you identify opposing opinions "angry" (mine, witterpitters. others).

Thanks for your contribution, but what I heard was blah blah blah blah.

If, in fact, you were "loaned quite a bit of money" from  your church in Florida, then what?