and while we're at it

The press release below also mentions the right wing's usual favorite critique of ACORN - that it is perpetrating “voter fraud." No courts have been able to substantiate this outrageous and defamatory claim, and in fact the last time this went to court, in Florida in 2004 , ACORN won a counter-suit. Still, this tidbit has proven to be fantastic grist for the right-wing rumor-mill.

What ACORN actuallyis doing is helping millions of lower income people register to vote (over 210,000 to date in OH), a responsibility the organization takes very seriously, and the very issue that scares, let's face it, Republicans. Republicans would prefer that lower income and minority people stay home on election day. So, they attempt to raise the specter of "voter fraud" where none exists, further eroding trust in the electoral system for people who don't really trust it to begin with. What is ironic - and disgusting - is that attempts to cast ACORN's non-partisan voter registration program as "fraudulently helping the Democrats" is in fact a totally partisan effort to shut ACORN's program down. True fraud, I'm sorry to say, is perpetrated by the GOP. Ever hear of caging?

slush fund? really?

Below is a press release regarding patently false allegations by Rep. Weldon (R-Fla) that ACORN would have received a "slush fund" from the failed bailout plan, which has been blowing up all over the news, including here. Alas, if only that were true, a certain head organizer would get reimbursements. And would be able to buy toner any old time it was needed. Not to mention hire more staff.

On Sept. 27, ACORN responded to Florida Republican Congressman Dave Weldon's false allegations Friday that ACORN would be a beneficiary of housing funds from the financial bailout plan pending in Congress. In a news release headlined, “Chairman Frank Wants to Funnel $100 Million in Taxpayer Funds to Corrupt Liberal Housing Group,” Weldon made a series of inaccurate and outrageous charges against ACORN (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now).

Weldon claims ACORN will benefit through a proposal from leading Democrats to address America’s affordable housing crisis by directing monies to the National Housing Trust Fund (NHTF). The NHTF was set up for the production, preservation, rehabilitation, or operation of rental housing to assist low-income households. ACORN is a national leader in the arena of affordable housing, tackling problems from predatory lending to affordable housing policy. However, ACORN neither builds, rehabilitates, nor manages housing and would not be a recipient of NHTF funds. Congressman Weldon’s statements are outright false.

“Under the Housing Trust Fund, no group is guaranteed any grants, said ACORN President Maude Hurd. “The funds will be awarded on a competitive, merit-based process administered by non-partisan career employees of the relevant agencies. Apparently, Republicans don’t know how federal grants are awarded. But why would they, since they are only familiar with non-bid contracts, like those awarded to Halliburton.”

ACORN members contend that Rep. Weldon and his Republican counterparts are causing the financial implosion because of their deregulatory policies.

“When the Republican administration relaxed the rules, predatory lending practices skyrocketed, sending our economy soaring out of control and landing in this current financial crisis,” Hurd said.

“ACORN applauds the efforts of Congressman Frank and Senator Dodd to tighten the rules and get the economy back on track,” Hurd said. “That starts with the creation of high quality, affordable housing for working families. And who better to build these homes than qualified and experienced non-profit housing developers? How much affordably housing has Rep. Weldon built, and what programs does he suggest for housing low income families in his district?”

Weldon also includes the following falsehoods in his release:

· Accusing Democrats of pushing for taxpayer funding of ACORN, a non tax-exempt advocacy organization that has a policy of not accepting government funds.

· Asserting unproven “voter fraud” charges against ACORN voter registration work, repeating Republican talking points from earlier this week. On Monday and Wednesday, respectively, the McCain campaign and the Republican National Committee conducted press conferences attempting to smear ACORN’s voter registration work in Florida and other battleground states. As facts emerged through the course of the week, those slanderous allegations proved unsubstantiated. The last time conservative forces tried to accuse Florida ACORN of voter fraud, in 2004, ACORN won a counterclaim of defamation in court.

ACORN Responds to Attack on Community Organizing

Cincinnati ACORN board chairperson James Moreland and national ACORN president Maude Hurd issued the following statements in response to Palin's and Giulani's remarks.

James Moreland’s statement: “As a member of Cincinnati ACORN, I’m baffled as to why someone would belittle the crucial work that organizers do. This kind of thinking – the idea that organizing doesn’t matter – is exactly what’s wrong with our country, and what’s right about organizing. In Cincinnati, ACORN members and organizers are fighting to stop foreclosures, to keep the Walnut Hills Kroger open, to improve low-income apartment buildings, and to fix the health care system. Community organizers, despite what Palin and Giuliani imply, are actually doing the hard, daily work of changing our communities to benefit and empower low- and- moderate income families.”

Maude Hurd’s statement: “ACORN members, leaders and staff are extremely disappointed that Republican leaders would make such condescending remarks on the great work community organizers accomplish in cities throughout this country. The fact that they marginalize our success in empowering low- and moderate-income people to improve their communities further illustrates their lack of touch with ordinary people. Every great movement in the history of the world has community organizing.

"ACORN has been building organizations and developing leadership among low- and moderate- income residents in neighborhoods throughout the United States for 38 years. During that time, ACORN chapters have worked individually and collectively to organize innovative grassroots campaigns on a number of critical issues.

"As the nation’s largest grassroots community organization with more than 400,000 member families, ACORN employs 400 organizers that carry a huge responsibility of helping disenfranchised people in their communities.

In the past 10 years, ACORN has helped more than 30 million American families through our various organizing campaigns: better schools, financial justice, living wages, community improvement, environmental justice, immigration, healthcare, predatory lending, voter engagement and utilities.

"The total monetary value of recent victorious ACORN campaigns was quantified in a 2006 report, entitled “ACORN Wins”. Over the last decade, ACORN’s victories amount to $15 billion, an average of $1.5 billion per year going directly into low- and moderate-income communities to help strengthen working families."

Who let the dogs out?

In case you missed it, both Sarah "Pit Bull with Lipstick" Palin and Rudy "Rottweiler" Giulani slammed Obama for his community organizing experience. (I missed it too, but that's why Al Gore invented Googlez.) Basically, the message was that Obama was a community organizer, and community organizers have no responsibilities and don't do anything, therefore Obama is unqualified to be president. You can read the full text of Palin's speech here, and an article about Giulani's speech here.

Often when right-wing folks go after Obama for his organizing history, it's all kinds of teeth-gnashing about his connections with a particular organization. Conservatives tend to believe fervently that this organization, which shall remain nameless, through "thuggery" and voter fraud, is going to turn our country into Stalinist Russia, starring a young black male - with a hammer-and-sickle embossed grill - as Stalin. Now, I know enough to know that this paranoid fantasy will never be realized. (The dictator will be a 70 year old black woman, duh.)

But this kind of panicky, Red Scare statement would give the wrong idea to the GOP - the idea that community organizing is legitimate and powerful. Instead, both Palin and Giuliani minimized Obama's experience, brushing it off 'cause it ain't no thang. Both of them incited derisive laughter from the crowd. Tee hee, who's afraid of little bitty Barack Obama and his grassroots community organizers? Not me!!

Yup. Dear, sweet, silly community organizers, sitting around, drinking coffee, blogging on the Internetz, daring to think that regular folks should have power, door-knocking all day, phone-banking all night, de-segregating schools, passing the Civil Rights Act, raising the minimum wage, forcing (and saving) the Community Reinvestment Act, shutting down payday lenders, stopping foreclosures. And what's that other thing community organizers do?

Oh, yeah. Win elections.

Palinalysis

I decided to re-post the following, which I wrote as a comment on my friend Everything But Law's blog:

We all know that McCain's numbskull assumption that Hillary supporters will flock to Palin because she is a woman will backfire (and already has).

But I think the more important reason he selected her is that she is a far-right, anti-choice Evangelical Christian, and he hopes she will recapture votes he is losing for being too "moderate."

As for all of the ruckus about her mother and grandmother-to-be status: there are many good arguments against Palin, but this is one of the poorest ones. I'm getting pissed at some fellow progressives and Obama supporters - men and women - complaining that she shouldn't be traveling the country campaigning with a pregnant teenager and a baby with Down Syndrome at home.

The public wouldn't raise such questions - at least not to the same degree - about a man with the same family situation. That is because people assume that the mother is, and should be, the primary caretaker of the children. Maybe Palin's husband is a stay-at-home dad. Maybe she has a good nanny. I don't know and I don't care, because I believe people have the right to make their own work / child care choices.

My friend EBL is right: it's none of our business. She is also correct that Mr. Limbaugh and Dr. Dobson would have a f-ing field day with this, were Palin a Dem.

Progressives need to focus on the real arguments against a McCain-Palin ticket - the economy, choice, the environment, the war, you name it; there is plenty of material there to keep us busy without resorting to sexism and motherism.