Ghosts of Joe Slovo

Enjoy!




Kick ass and take names.

This one has a link to the ACORN Action Center at the end so people can take action to stop the smears and make sure that everyone who is eligible can get to the polls on Election day.



The other one is over 60,000 views and was the 71st most viewed video on all of YouTube on Wednesday October 21 and the 3rd most favorited in the News and Politics section.

Take a minute and change your link to this one instead so people can fight back as well as learn the truth.

Kick ass and take so very many names.

Who is that handsome devil?

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PASS THIS AROUND TO EVERYONE YOU KNOW! HELP SPREAD THE WORD ABOUT THE TRUTH.
</shouting>




Kick ass and take names

I didn't know that getting poor people to vote was a Federal case, but apparently I live in something called the 21st century and the Bush Justice Department lives in the 1880's...

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/V/VOTER_FRAUD_FBI?SITE=ORROS&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT


Officials: FBI investigates ACORN for voter fraud

By LARA JAKES JORDAN




WASHINGTON (AP) -- The FBI is investigating whether the community
activist group ACORN helped foster voter registration fraud around the
nation before the presidential election.

A senior law enforcement official confirmed the investigation to The
Associated Press on Thursday. A second senior law enforcement official
says the FBI was looking at results of recent raids on ACORN offices
in several states for any evidence of a coordinated national scam.

Both officials spoke on condition of anonymity because Justice
Department regulations forbid discussing ongoing investigations
particularly so close to an election.

ACORN, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, says
it has registered 1.3 million young people, minorities and poor and
working-class voters - most of whom tend to be Democrats.

Republican accusations about the group were raised during Wednesday's
presidential debate between Democrat Barack Obama and GOP candidate
John McCain.

Some ACORN employees have been accused of submitting false voter
registration forms - including some signed `Mickey Mouse' or other
fictitious characters.

Those voter registration cards have become the focus of fraud
investigations in Nevada, Connecticut, Missouri and at least five
other states. Election officials in Ohio and North Carolina also
recently questioned the group's voter forms.

ACORN has said the "vast majority" of its workers are conscientious,
but some might have turned in duplicate applications or provided fake
information to pad their pay. Workers caught submitting false
information have been fired, ACORN officials say.

ACORN says laws in a number of states require it to submit all
registration cards it collects even dubious ones, so its workers
segregate applications with missing, suspicious or false information
and flag them so state election officials can quickly check them
further.

Keith Olberman and Rachel Maddow get it right on ACORN.

You can find out the real truth here: The Real ACORN.


Here's Keith.



Here's Rachel.



Kick so much ass and take so many names.

Jackpot!

McCain attacks us via his new web ad.

This is complete garbage, of course and ACORN will have a response site up over the weekend.

But, for now, enjoy the lies.



Kick ass and take so so many names!

How To Tell If You Are Doing A Good Job

The right wing falls over itself to link you with everything bad, including the finanical meltdown and undermining the integrity of elections.

Latest exhibit: http://stopacorn.org/, a project of NetRightNation.

Best example of crazed insanity:

In response to ACORN’s nationwide track record of voter fraud and coercive high-risk loan activities, StopAcorn.org is calling upon President Bush to take the following actions:

Direct the Secretary of State and the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency to investigate the efforts of ACORN International in efforts to undermine democratically elected governments and to determine the full extent of the relationship between ACORN and ACORN International with the governments of Cuba and Venezuela.

What. The. Fuck?

Cuba and Venezuala? The Director of Central Intelligence?

I want what they are eating for breakfast because it it working way better than my homemade granola and yogurt.



Kick Ass and Smoke A Cuban Cigar That I Bought At A Citgo Station In Caracas.

First, if you want to yell about the ridiculousness of this massive piece of corporate welfare, check this website out. There might be a chance to give someone a piece of your mind coming to a city near you tomorrow. www.truemajority.org/nobailout/search

Press from ACORN's actions yesterday:

TV Stations
1. ABC Los Angeles, Local rally to protest federal bailout,
http://abclocal.go.com/kabc/story?section=news/local/los_angeles&id=6409305

2. ABC Denver, Bailout Critics Take To Streets,
http://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/17542574/detail.html

3. FOX 41 WDRB, Putting the $700 billion bailout bill together is taking time,
http://fox41.com/Global/story.asp?S=9059892

4. WCBSTV.com, Group Calls For Bail Out Of Those Near Foreclosure,
http://wcbstv.com/business/foreclosure.bailout.housing.2.823874.html

5. NYI,  Lawmakers, Homeowners Concerned Over Wall St. Bailout,
http://www.ny1.com/content/features/86156/lawmakers--homeowners-concerned-over-wall-st--bailout/Default.aspx

6. WTAE TV 4, Community Groups Protest Proposed Wall Street Bailout,
http://www.thepittsburghchannel.com/news/17540205/detail.html

7. WISH TV 8, Hubbard, Pence weigh in on $700B buyout,
http://www.wishtv.com/Global/story.asp?S=9060259&nav=CPFP

8. KING 5, Seattle, Will Bailout Help Individual Homeowners?,
http://www.king5.com/video/news-index.html?nvid=285762

9. WAVE 3, Louisville, Wall Street Woes Felt In Louisville,
http://www.wave3.com/Global/story.asp?s=9061105

Publications
1.The Advocate, Protesters urge Shays to stop foreclosures
http://www.stamfordadvocate.com/news/ci_10543724

2.San Francisco Chronicle, How bailout might help troubled homeowners,
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/09/24/BU57133LNM.DTL

3.Miami Herald, Too much on the line to rush Wall Street fix,
http://www.miamiherald.com/opinion/columnists/story/698898.html

4.Miami Herald, Economic bailout backlash grows,
http://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation/story/698917.html

5.Insight News, Fannie Mae - Freddie Mac takeover: Non-Profits wary of bailout,
http://www.insightnews.com/articles.asp?mode=display&articleID=4835

6.Miami Herald, Wall Street bailout could boost South Florida housing market,
http://meltwaternews.com/redirect.asp?u=183953&p=328880&d=516899673&url=http://www.miamiherald.com/business/story/697448.html

7.The Seattle Times, Seattle collaborates with 22 banks and credit unions to offer services to people who have no bank accounts,
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/businesstechnology/2008196605_unbanked230.html?syndication=rss

8.Roll Call, ACORN Members Want Support in Bailout Bill,
http://www.rollcall.com/issues/54_38/news/28637-1.html

9.Metro, Wall St. executives pay price of failure,
http://www.metrobostonnews.com/us/home/

10.Denver Daily News, Group demands ‘Main St.’aid,
http://www.thedenverdailynews.com/article.php?aID=1971

News Services
1.Arkansas News Bureau, Lincoln leery of bailout plan; homeowner advocates call for safeguards,
http://arkansasnews.com/archive/2008/09/24/News/348065.html

2.RIS Media,  Struggling Homeowners Demand Bankruptcy Provisions as Congress Moves to Bailout Financial Industry,
http://rismedia.com/wp/2008-09-23/struggling-homeowners-demand-bankruptcy-provisions-as-congress-moves-to-bailout-financial-industry/

3.The Associated Press, Congress balks at quick bailout,
http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/news/stories.nsf/nation/story/B2A68DCDB35A55C3862574CE0011B11E?OpenDocument

4.DSNews.com, Officials Testify Before Senate on Proposed Bailout,
http://www.dsnews.com/view_story.cfm?id=2893

5.Kmov.com, Local group protests government bank bailout plan,
http://www.kmov.com/localnews/stories/kmov_localnews_080923_acorn_protest.a534c01f.html

6.PR-GB.com, ACORN Members Facing Foreclosure to Attend Senate Hearing to Plead Case: Bail Out Main Street, Not Just Wall Street,
http://pr-gb.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=54992&Itemid=34

7.Yahoo! Italia (Associated Press), A ACORN, The Association of Community Organizations ...,
http://it.notizie.yahoo.com/foto/galleria/foto-george-bush.html?imageUrl=/ap/20080923/r_p_ap_ot_other/pot-homes-homeowners-protese7dfeef7bfc9


Blogs
1.The Huffington Post, The Bush Bail-Out—We’ve Been Here Before,
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/peter-dreier/the-bush-bail-out----we-h_b_128731.html

2.The Albany Project, ACORN To Feds: Bail Out Main Street, Not Just Wall Street,
http://www.thealbanyproject.com/showDiary.do;jsessionid=1D2C5378DBC0F6EB6EADDFB07E92183A?diaryId=4477 
http://www.thealbanyproject.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=4477

3.TeamTish (NY Council Member Letitia James), Bail Out Main Street, Not Just Wall Street,
http://teamtish.blogspot.com/2008/09/bail-out-main-street-not-just-wall.html

4.Franz Strasser Blog, Protesters Demand Bailout for Main Street,
http://www.franz-strasser.com/blog/?p=114

5.Mark Zilbert , Wall Street Bailout Could Boost South Florida Market,
http://www.zilbertblog.com/miami_beach_archives/48

Yesterday ACORN staged demostrations in 35 cities calling on Congress and the Fed to add Main Street into the Wall Street bailout.

Here are some choice exerpts from their press release on the actions:

In Washington, D.C., more than 50 ACORN members from Maryland, Delaware, Pennsylvania, New York, and Washington, D.C. attended the U.S. Senate hearing then staged a rally outside. The only low- to moderate-income people at the hearing, ACORN members testified about losing their homes to foreclosure.

Outside the Senate building, Baltimore ACORN member Robinette Balmer dressed as a cat wearing a life preserver to demonstrate how Wall Street's "fat cats" are getting bailed out. ACORN members then headed to the U.S. Treasury building for another rally.
Afterward, Maryland ACORN members went back to Baltimore to protest at their local office of the Federal Reserve Bank.

Here are the demands ACORN made on behalf of their 450,000 member families and working people across the country:

• Require Automatic Modifications for Distressed Homeowners. Any financial institution that participates in the federal bailout must provide automatic affordable loan modifications to homeowners facing foreclosure, structured along the lines of the loan modification program recently enacted by the FDIC.


• Amend the Bankruptcy Law. We must allow homeowners to restructure their mortgages in bankruptcy court and save their homes, just like wealthy Americans can with vacation homes and yachts.


• Re-regulate the Industry. Any financial institution that benefits from the bailout must in return provide public benefit by investing in low- and moderate-income communities through an updated Community Reinvestment Act. Further, Wall Street should agree to comply with new regulations over disclosure, capital requirements, conflicts of interest, market manipulation, and true protections for borrowers from predatory lenders.


• Robust Oversight from Congress. The Treasury Department should be required to report at least monthly on its work, and CEO compensation should be strictly limited until justified by performance.

Here's a short overall report from a senior ACORN staff member:

"In less than 48 hours, we pulled off 35 events around the country and probably had our best press day in years, if not ever.  In addition, we did these with labor and other allies in many cases.  We were the voice of working families in America today, fighting back against this all-out effort by Bush/Paulson/Bernanke to steal a $700 Billion blank check from us.

Excellent work-YOU ALL ROCK!!

We hit the Fed in 17 cities today:  NYC, Seattle, LA, San Fran, Detroit, Louisville, Baltimore, Boston, Dallas, St. Louis, Cleveland, Cincinatti, Miami, Minneapolis, Pittsburgh, Denver and Little Rock.

In addition, we held events in Albuquerque, Orlando, Providence, Springfield, Bridgeport, Hartford, Tucscon, Las Vegas, Indianapolis, Columbus and another 6-7 cities we're still waiting on reports from.

50 leaders from 5 east Coast cities (NYC, Philly, Delaware, DC and Maryland) were up and driving into DC at 3-4 AM today to participate in the Senate Hearing, talk with press(we were the only real people there!), and finally hit Treasury."

And, finally, for those brave souls who have managed to wade through the whole thing, here's a fascinating report from Orlando ACORN on their event yesterday.

"We had over 50 people turn out on a dime for today's action.  Several leaders helped to run the press conference/action, including 3 people in foreclosure, one who was locked out of her house for good today.

BUT BEFORE the event, we sent a delegation of members to Congressman Ric Keller's office & US Senators Nelson & Martinez. The goal here was to hear what they were saying & report it back to the rally...then folks could decide what they wanted to do.

Here's what they said the first time around:

Keller's office, when called beforehand by our members (as they were getting ready to head to action), were told that he would only support a bailout that concerned the community.  However, when they arrived they were told he didn't have a position & there was no bill. HA.  He would not make a decision until he was able to read the finalized product.  HA again.

Nelson's office was awesome & gave us a statement & would pass all of our recommendations to Nelson.  They told us he would not support anything that did not help the community & individual homeowners & that it appeared that all of our demands were similar to his.

When the delegation rolled into Martinez's office, they were told no one was there who could answer anything.  Leader Carolyn Patmon then asked that we do a conference call to the legislative director...and they did. His response was that Martinez wanted to keep this separate...that they needed to rush this bill through for it to be effective & that once this bill is passed, he is interested in looking at the homeowners side of it & re-regulating industry & helping individual homeowners.  (We've heard that before).

Right as they finished the rounds (all offices within a couple blocks of each other), the delegation met up with the rally.

At the Rally, several leaders led the agenda, and had state rep Scott Randolph give a rousing speech.  In addition, 3 members currently facing foreclosure (including one who was locked out of her home today) & 1 member whose home was saved spoke on pieces of the demands.  At the end of the rally, Carolyn Patmon reported to all the folks what each elected said & the voted to split up & half march on Martinez's office & the other half on Keller.  Everyone went in one by one demanding there names be added to a list for a bail out since it was clear Congress was "selling them out."

Keller's office again said nothing different & Martinez's office said the Oct 1st bill is to help homeowners, but this [bailout] bill is to save the financial industry.

Channel 6, Univision, Orlando Weekly & WDBO 580 (conservative radio) showed up for the action.  Channel 13 was "lost."  Channel 9 covered us this morning on the plans for the action.

Also we managed to hook up Pauline Bryant who was locked out of her home today with the New York Times which should be in the paper tomorrow."

Kick ass, especially financial sector, Treasury, and Congressional ass. Taking names will happen after the ass kicking subsides.

Updates at the bottom of the entry...

I've excerpted parts of a fresh post on the Project Vote blog and is an analysis of recent stories from Michigan and Ohio about Republicans using lists of houses in foreclosure to challenge voters' right to vote in November. People are calling this heartless, which I think is a bit tepid. I think "reprehensible", "unconscionable", "Jim Crow-esque", and "sleezy" might start to do it justice, but I think I'm just lacking creativity. There is a particular irony in the GOP's announcement of these attempts to keep folks away from the polls during the week of September 11, when, supposedly, we all come together to celebrate what unifies us as Americans. But then, that comes as no surprise really, given the right's attempt to trademark Sept. 11 and use it against progressives during policy debates and elections.

Here are some of the key parts of the post.

Partisan political operatives in Michigan are taking voter caging operations to depths that would surprise even the most cynical observers of American elections. If their plans are put into action, thousands of Michigan foreclosure victims may find that they will not only have lost their homes this year, but also their vote.

Operatives in the closely contested state, which is home to thousands of homeowners facing foreclosure, are “gearing up for a comprehensive voter challenge campaign,” according to Eartha Jane Melzer of the Michigan Messenger Wednesday. The state allows parties to send election challengers to polls to challenge the eligibility of voters if they “have good reason to believe” a voter is ineligible. In this case, the GOP of Macomb County—a “key swing county” with a foreclosure rate in the top three percent in the nation—has announced plans to challenge the voting eligibility of foreclosure victims based on residency.

“We will have a list of foreclosed homes and will make sure people aren’t voting from those addresses,” Macomb County GOP chairman James Carabelli told the Messenger.

And then this.

“The Macomb County party's plans to challenge voters who have defaulted on their house payments is likely to disproportionately affect African Americans who are overwhelmingly Democratic voters,” Melzer writes. “More than 60 percent of all sub-prime loans – the most likely kind of loan to go into default – were made to African Americans in Michigan...”

Melzer points out that Republican presidential candidate John McCain's regional headquarters is in the office of the state's largest foreclosure law firm, Trott & Trott, whose founder has raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for the campaign. McCain “stands to benefit from the burgeoning number of foreclosures in the state,” Melzer writes.

Advocates respond.

“At a minimum, what you are seeing is a fairly comprehensive effort by the Republican Party, a systemic broad-based effort to put up obstacles for people to vote,” says [J. Gerald] Herbert [former voting rights litigator for the US Department of Justice]. “When you are comprehensively challenging people to vote, your goals are two-fold: One is you are trying to knock people out from casting ballots; the other is to create a slowdown that will discourage others.” This type of disruption would be expected in areas with high foreclosure rates, particularly the Detroit metropolitan, where one in every 176 households received foreclosure filings during the month of July, according to Melzer.

“You would think [the Macomb GOP] would think, 'This is going to look too heartless,'” says David Lagstein, head organizer for Michigan ACORN, which has registered 200,000 new voters statewide and provides foreclosure-avoidance assistance.

“The Republican-led state Senate has not moved on the anti-predatory lending bill for over a year and yet have time to prey on those who have fallen victim to foreclosure to suppress the vote,” Lagstein says.

If you want to learn more:

“Voter Caging.” Project Vote.

James, Teresa. “Caging Democracy: A 50-Year History of Partisan Challenges to Minority Voters.” Project Vote. September 2007.

Kick ass and protect voting rights.

UPDATE: Also available at DailyKos, MyDD, and OpenLeft.

UPDATE II: In this story in the Michigan Messenger today, the Macomb County GOP is now stating that it has no voter caging plans for the foreclosure list, but that it does expect, "party volunteers to challenge voters in other ways."

When asked whether Michigan Republicans plan to create a challenge list based on returned direct mail, a practice known as “vote caging,” Doster replied, “I think so. I know this has been done in years past … both parties may be doing this.”

Reports of the plan for foreclosure-based challenges have spurredoutrage and the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), planned a demonstration today at the Macomb County Republican headquarters.

This was originally posted at Project Vote's blog, Voting Matters and at Project Vote's diary on DailyKos.

Steve Rosenfeld, writing in the journal Social Policy, has authored a comprehensive look at the recent history of partisan attacks on the voting process itself and the unfolding attempts to roll back all of the voting rights gains of the past 50 years that have gained speed and urgency under the Bush Administration.

Pointing out that modern voter suppression attempts and larger projects to reshape the entire electorate to favor conservatives no longer rely on the open fear and intimidation that characterized past practices from American history, Rosenfeld opens his in-depth survey with this observation,

“Jim Crow has returned to American elections, only in the 21st century he is apt to be a lawyer carrying a folder filled with briefing papers, proposed legislation and talking points about “voter fraud” and protecting the sanctity of the vote.”

The entire article, which Social Policy has placed outside their subscriber wall (pdf), is worth reading in its entirety.

From the article, here’s the overall thesis:

The newest barriers include state laws that target various phases of the voting process. Registration by individuals has been made more rigorous. Mass registration drives face new deadlines and increased potential fines. Citizens must present new identification to register and to vote, and in some states newly registered voters face increased prospects that partisan challengers will question their credentials before voting. Civil rights groups have noted that all of these new laws and procedures disproportionately fall on people of color, poor people, senior citizens and the disabled.

The Department of Justice, which for decades fought to ensure all eligible citizens could vote, has encouraged states to take these steps in the opposite direction. Political appointees who advocate for stringent requirements before ballots are cast and votes are counted now drive much of the Voting Section’s actions. As a result, the Justice Department has been pushing states to purge voter lists, and to adopt newly restrictive voter ID and provisional ballot laws – actions all that are known to cause delays if not confusion at the polls. Meanwhile, the Justice Department’s Voting Section has not enforced other federal laws, such as the requirement that state welfare offices offer public aid recipients a chance to register to vote. Similarly, the Bush Justice Department has filed few cases on behalf of minority voters.

The Department’s political appointees have also pressured federal prosecutors to pursue “voter fraud” cases against the Bush administration’s perceived opponents, such as groups like ACORN (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now), which conducts mass registration drives among populations that tend to vote Democratic. Two former federal prosecutors have said they believe that they lost their U.S. attorney posts for failing to pursue those cases. The proponents of this renewed impetus to police voters are almost all from a powerful and well-connected wing of the Republican Party that believes steps are needed to protect elections from what they call “voter fraud,” or allegations that Democrats – or their allies - are fabricating voter registrations en masse, and voting more than once to win. It is “an article of religious faith that voter fraud is causing us to lose elections,” Royal Masset, the former political director of the Republican Party of Texas said in a May 17, 2007 Houston Chronicle report. The report continued, “He [Masset] doesn’t agree with that, but does believe that requiring photo IDs could cause enough of a drop off in legitimate Democratic voting to add 3% to the Republican vote.”

Rosenfeld’s piece adds deeper context to the Art Levine piece we highlighted yesterday. Taken together, these two articles show the depth and breadth of recent partisan attempts to shape the electorate and the resulting corruption of independent non-partisan agencies and departments including the Department of Justice itself. They further show the mechanics of those attempts and how they centered largely on ACORN, a national organization fighting for the rights of low- and moderate-income families. (ACORN is also one of Project Vote’s field partners in our Voter Participation Program.)

I mentioned the other day that the ACORN PAC might be making an endorsement this week. Well, they did.

On Wednesday night, ACORN Votes, the ACORN PAC, endorsed Barack Obama for President.

ACORN President Maude Hurd had this to say,

“Last night, Sen. Obama received more than the two-thirds majority needed from our elected national leadership to secure the endorsement. Over the past months, we have worked with all leading candidates. ACORN’s members have deep appreciation and respect for Senators Clinton and Edwards and their work on behalf of our communities. What it came down to was that Senator Obama is the candidate who best understands and can effect change on the issues ACORN cares about like stopping foreclosures, enacting fair and comprehensive immigration reform, and building stronger and safer communities across America.”

ACORN's membership is probably about 35% Latino and 65% African-American. I don't think this will have much effect in Texas, since Texas ACORN's presence is concentrated in a few areas. But this could have a major impact on African-American turnout in Ohio, where ACORN has a major presence and a demonstrated track record in moving state-wide issues and conducting statewide voter contact programs. ACORN ran the field for the 2006 Ohio Minimum Wage ballot measure and reached between 250K and 350K largely African-American voters.

I would expect that this means that ACORN members will hit the streets for Obama immediately in Ohio (and Texas, but more in Ohio). Down the line this could mean more boots on the ground in places like Pennsylvania as well.

Interesting.

Kick ass and take names.

Word on the street is that ACORN, which has massive field capacity amongst low and moderate income voters and communities of color in Ohio and Pennsylvania, might be making a Presidential endorsement this week, Wednesday at the earliest. 

The organization's membership has been divided amongst the Big Three on the Democratic side, reflecting how voters voting in Democratic primaries have broken down nationally. But with Edwards out and the fight down to two, with only a few big states remaining, it looks like there is mounting support to pick a candidate. The winning candidate needs two-thirds support of the voting membership and no one's willing to go on record as to who the membership is supporting.

My own guess is Obama, but Clinton has always played well with ACORN's membership and NY ACORN members are especially fierce in their support. They could move the rest of the voting leadership or gather enough votes to block any endorsement at all.

This is particularly important for the endorsee in Ohio because of ACORN's demostrated ability to reach voters in majority minority districts, last seen in 2006's election when they ran the field for the minimum wage ballot initiative and reached well over 250,000 voters with multiple contacts over a 6 week period.

We'll see what happens...

Kick ass and take names.

As you faithful readers may know, the work I do in my day job supports voter participation programs in low and moderate income communities across the country. This year we're going to do the biggest non-partisan voter registration drive in the history of the United States. That's right. The biggest. Ever. In the history of the US. And it is going to be done largely among blacks and Latinos with some working class whites thrown in for good measure. Then we're going to follow that up with a voter mobilization (also called Get Out The Vote) effort that, while it won't be the biggest ever in the history of the US, will be the biggest ever in the history of my organization.

To put all this in perspective, let me give you some numbers.

(There is an internal debate about whether or not we should be explicit about how big the program is in communication that goes beyond our doors. Some argue that we don't want to tip off the bad guys as to where we're doing the work and by how much, because it will help their targeting. I understand that. But I argue that the bad guys look at the same math we do and understand exactly where the most important turf is and, further, that if they really are going to target us like they did in 2004 and 2006 - that Attorneygate thing was for real, yo - all they have to do is call a County Clerk and ask if we've been turning in cards yet. Once they know that, they will understand the scope of our work.) 

Anyway, back to the numbers. Largest drive ever = 1.2 million voter registration applications. Largest GOTV program for us ever = 2 million voters.

As you can imagine, this costs money. We're talking multiple millions, more than 10, less than 20, just for the VR part.

So I've been spending large chunks of my time creating proposals to various foundations and richie rich's so we can get the moola to bring more progressive voters into the equation and, hopefully, force the candidates to fall in line with progressive policy objectives. Which we call "winning".

Now, I expect that institutions that just give away money without expecting you to pay it back can make a range of demands on their prospective grantees, chiefly around the kind, nature, and amount of paper they want from you before they give you your own paper swag, generally cut into small pieces, died green, and stamped with various numbers.

So I'm used to dealing with lots and lots of arcane requests for information and clarification and whatnot.

But there's this one foundation that just goes beyond the pale. Usually a foundation reads your initial proposal, asks some points of clarification and then does their own internal process on the sucker.

Not these guys.

I've gotten back the initial draft no fewer than three times, each time with a minimum of 25 new questions or comments to address. Each revision takes at least 25-30 hours of work to deal with. After this process is done it will go to outside readers who will then make comments, to which I will be expected to reply.

Now, I have to say that we ARE asking them for a significant chunk of change. The kind of money that if someone offered it to me on the street, I'd wonder if I was being asked to kill someone or I was secretly being taped for a reality TV show. But, this amount of money isn't even close to the largest single donation that we've gotten for the program and doesn't even make up 1% of the total program cost. Yet they are clearly taking up WAAAAAAAAY more than 1% of my fundraising time.

There have been times in this process where I have been seriously considering just laying it on the line and calling them arrogant pricks who think they have a right to ask for this level of engagement because they are giving so much money, when in reality they don't know crap about this work and should be able to tell from our track record that we know that of which we speak (seriously, it's a very good track record - we have accounted for 37% of all voter registration applications from voter registration drives in the US since 2004).

But I've learned that people who are giving you money don't respond so well to this kind of frankness. So I bite my tongue. And post to LJ.

Okay, gotta get crackin' on that 3rd revision.

Kick ass and bray like a donkey dragging a one-ton brick up a mountain.

Been gone for a while. This is going to be very stream of consciousness.

*Los Angeles smells GREAT after it rains. Seriously. But, we're in a drought, so this is something I've experienced, like, twice.

*We did the Bay Area for part of the Holidays. I love the Bay and I totally appreciate getting to jog in the redwoods. Totally did not appreciate the 5-day sore throat this gave me. Also, if you get a chance to go to a party in the Berkeley hills at a house with a panoramic view from Mt. Tam to the San Mateo Bridge during a winter sunset then you should go, even if it is just for the sunset. If the party is full of family members, good wine, and great food, then so much the better.

*Tyche and her family are good together for about 2.5 days, after that I suggest shin guards and one of those weird looking soft helmet things that soccer players use to prevent concussions. On a related note, there are few things as surpsingly disappointing as a banal "Jesus Loves You" Christmas Day homily. And I say that as an a person with no particular religious affiliation.

*New Orleans continues to be a mix of devestation and slow return. Comparing this time last year to this year, the amount of rebuilding and population growth is palpable. There are still massive problems - infrastructure, political, justice system, health care system, housing - but the change is hopeful. The culture that makes New Orleans New Orleans still shines through, though it will take awhile before it becomes as robust as it was.

*Case in point: New Year's at Tipitina's, a NOLA institution. Featuring Galactic, a NOLA funk band that is one of the few contemporary bands that can kick ass the way The Meters and JB and Parliament/Funkadelic did. Which is where Tyche and I along with my brother and his fiance ended up. Got there at about 9:45 and stayed until about 3AM. Galactic was even better live than on their CD's. But it was the entire scene, an alchemical mixture of drunken frat boys/sorority sisters in town for the various bowl games, recent "brain gain" young people there to rebuild, old school NOLA burnouts, southern fried hippies (think Asheville and Athens), and the usual number of funk-stoners that made it an utterly NOLA gathering. Well, that and the music. New Or-Lee-Annes knows how to party. Seriously.

*And as I stood there, about halfway back in the room, taking in the entire scene, the people, the music, the mixed scents of sweat, mixed drinks, spilled beer, tobacco, and marijuana all at New Year's on the cusp of 2008, I thought, "This is history in the making. People in this town are going to remember the years after the storm as something. It will be an era, a time spoken of as "a time when". And my brother is right in the middle of it and here I am right in the middle of this. This is going to be a thing."

*2008 is going to be a thing, too.

*The general election is going to be close, unless Bloomberg launches a 3rd party bid. Then it's the Democrats in a blow-out. Having said that, this year it is the Democrats' race to lose.

*About two years ago I wrote a few essays/longwinded blog comments about the coming crack-up of the GOP coalition between the Main Streeters and the Wall Streeters. Main Streeters were your Christianists and aspects of the small business community, Wall Streeters were your corporate owning class types. The latter use the former as foot soldiers to elect people like W who speak about values and proceed to rape the country and embark on pre-emptive wars. But this year, the Main Streeters finally have their own genuine candidate in Mike Huckabee. I think the crack-up is upon us. This is one of the reasons why I think this election is the Democrats to lose.

*Of course that means that who the Democratic nominee is becomes even more important than it was in 2004. There is an opportunity to get a functioning progressive into the White House and we need to take that opportunity. My choice is Edwards, clearly the most progressive and most populist of the Democratic contenders.

*Obama is good too, but it worries me that he chooses to make it difficult for citizen's organizations like ACORN and labor unions to get his campaign's attention and that he uses rhetoric and literature that calls groups like us "special interests" as if we played in the same sandbox with energy companies and Big Pharma. I wonder how open he would be to groups like us once he's in the White House. And believe me, we are going to be a big reason that core progressive voters show up at the polls this year.

That's all for now.

Kick ass and take names.

Sometimes you get to surprise yourself.

For a few years now I've been toiling away in a small part of a large operation dedicated to facilitating and encouraging the electoral participation of underrepresented populations, with an emphasis on black folks, Latinos, low-income families, and young people. A large part of that work is registering people to vote, or more accurately, helping them register to vote, since technically they aren't registered until the County says they are registered.

We've done pretty well. Actually, we are the largest national voter registration organization in the United States (which isn't saying much because most other countries don't need this kind of work as they have policies in place that ensure near-universal registration of all their eligible population). Over the past two election cycles we've submitted over 37% of all the voter registration applications submitted by nationalvoter registration drives. And I've seen a statistice that about 12% of voters get registred through VR drives, so we've got about 37% of whatvever of that 12% was done by national drives. In raw terms, that's about 1.7 million VR applications.

In order to do this effectively, you have to go where the unregistered people are, especially from your own targeted constituencies. So you have to know approximately where these folks are and how many of them are there. Otherwise you waste time and money, both of which are precious for anyone, but especially so for an organization of poor people.

That's where I come in. One of the biggest tasks my tiny little piece of this much larger operation is responsible for is projecting the unregistered eligible populations in various counties and electoral jurisdictions. While this isn't rocket science, it does take some thought and concentration to deal with the data sets. Well, it turns out that in toiling away at this aspect of my work for the past 3 years, I've actually become good at it. An expert even. In fact, there are only a couple other people in the progressive non-profit civic engagement/voter participation community who have my level of sophistication.

Of course that really means nothing. Or meant nothing until I spent 30 minutes on the phone with an actual demographer and talked through the methodology of my projections. Turns out I'm way more accurate than I ever anticipated I was. So my numbers are good and the projections we add to them in order to understand potential registrants by the registration deadlines in most states aren't crazy weird either.

In other words, I'm one of the top experts in determining unregistered voting age populations by race, ethnicity, income, etc. in the entire country.

It is definately weird to walk out of a meeting and suddenly realize this.

Anybody else out there an expert in something they had no idea they had even developed skills in?

Kick ass and register to vote.

From Wade Rathke's Chief Organizer blog giving the insider's perspective on how the questions for the event today were put together.

Here's an except:

 There will be 7 questions that run the gamut of ACORN’s interests in low- and moderate-income communities around the country.

1. Maximum Eligible Participation: getting all qualified and eligible citizens for any federal program to fully participate in the program.

2. Protecting Our Assets: stopping predatory lending and moving forward on better financial services.

3. Citizenship: helping immigrants become citizens.

4. Rebuilding American Cities: the call for a Marshall plan and a community impact assessment for all neighborhoods confronting developers with public support.

5. Improving Income, Wages, and Working Conditions: show us the money!

6. Katrina and Rebuilding New Orleans: this is more than a symbol to ACORN, it’s personal!

7. Protecting the Right to Vote: we have had enough of voter suppression and want a fully entitled citizenship.

Each member has a one-page scorecard and a small stub of a pencil prepared for them, so that they can rank each candidate and his or her response and keep a running straw poll of their thinking to input to fellow members not attending and the leadership across the country. The scoring is tough and runs from “excellent” to “failed.” We are tired and won’t take it no more!

Kick ass and make an informed choice.

ACORN Presidential Forum from Philadelphia will feature ACORN leaders asking Hillary Clinton, John Edwards and Dennis Kucinich questions about the issues that affect low and moderate income Americans and about supportuing the work that ACORN members engage in every day.

The fun starts at 1PM EDT/10AM PDT and will be simulcast on the web as well as blogged by several national and Philadelphia-area blogs. There is also a blog anyone can join run by ACORN set up specifically for this event. You can also find short descriptions of the bloggers who will be in atttendance and who will be posting about the event here.

Candidates themselves will be the last up in the event, after introductions and explanations of the most important issues to ACORN members. Each candidate will go one-on-one with a group of ACORN leaders who will ask direct questions and expect direct answers. Each candidate will get a minimum of 35 minutes.

The whole thing starts in half an hour. See you there.

Kick ass and make an informed choice.

On July 2, ACORN will sponsor a Presidential Candidates Forum for the Democratic candidates. It will take place in a Philadelphia church on the north side of town, largely African-American, largely poor.

So far Hilary Clinton and John Edwards have confirmed their attendance and Dennis Kucinich is a tentative yes.

The format will include a short speech from incoming Philly Mayor Michael Nutter, an explanation of the top issues as identified by ACORN's low- and moderate-income membership, and then questions asked directly of the candidates by ACORN members. Each candidate will be asked 45 minutes worth of questions. The answers will be used by ACORN members to inform their decision-making process around whether or not to make endorsements in the primaries and if so, for whom, as well as for the edification of the public at large.

Every candidate was invited, those appearing made it work for their campaigns. Of the candidates who could not attend, Bill Richardson agreed to be interviewed by ACORN's Political Action Committee leaders last week in DC.

Of interest for everybody out in the internets, the Forum will be webcast live and will also be live blogged by over a dozen guest bloggers.

Details:

Monday July 2, 2007
Bright Hope Baptist Church in North Philly
Lunch starts Noon EDT
Program starts 1PM EDT
Program ends 5PM EDT

Clinton - 2:30PM
Edwards - 3:40PM
Kucinich - 4:15PM

Simulcast can be found here: http://www.acorn.org/candidatesforum

Bloggers include:
MyDD
ESCHATON (Atrios)
Future Majority
Booman Tribune
and a host of Philly-area blogs.

And ACORN will be running a blog for the event as well.

So if you want to see where these folks are on issues that matter to Main Street as opposed to Wall Street, then tune in!

Kick ass and ponder your choices.

Normally when I'm talking about rights and politics and things I just rant at you good people.

Today I'm linking to a story from the McClatchy Papers Washignton Bureau (they own the Sac Bee, the Fresno Bee, the Raleigh News and Observer, the Charlotte Observer and a host of other mid-sized papers) about the complete and utter politicization of the Department of Justice under Bush and how it has become nothing more than an adjunct of the Republican party in its quest to suppress progressive voting blocs and institutionalize a GOP majority.

Here's a couple of fun quotes:

For six years, the Bush administration, aided by Justice Department political appointees, has pursued an aggressive legal effort torestrict voter turnout in key battleground states in ways that favor Republican political candidates.

The administration intensified its efforts last year asPresident Bush's popularity and Republican support eroded heading into a midterm battle for control of Congress, which the Democrats won.

Facing nationwide voter registration drives byDemocratic-leaning groups, the administration alleged widespreadelection fraud and endorsed proposals for tougher state and federalvoter identification laws. Presidential political adviser Karl Rove alluded to the strategy in April 2006 when he railed about voter fraud in a speech to the Republican National Lawyers Association.

I mean, it doesn't get any clearer than that. It should be noted for the record that Project Vote and ACORN were both thoroughly investigated as part of this effort and the failure of US Attorneys in NM and WA to find any actual systematic violations of the law or conspiracies to illegally subvert the elections led to their dismissal. Rove and Gonzalez felt like their folks were being insufficiently aggressive. But since neither Project Vote nor ACORN commits voter fraud, there wasn't anything to find.

The administration, however, has repeatedly invoked allegations ofwidespread voter fraud to justify tougher voter ID measures and othersteps to restrict access to the ballot, even though research suggests that voter fraud is rare.

Since President Bush's first attorney general, John Ashcroft, aformer Republican senator from Missouri, launched a "Ballot Access andVoter Integrity Initiative" in 2001, Justice Department political appointees have exhorted U.S. attorneys to prosecute voter fraud cases,and the department's Civil Rights Division has sought to roll back policies to protect minority voting rights.

On virtually every significant decision affecting election balloting since 2001, the division's Voting Rights Section has come down on the side of Republicans, notably in Florida, Michigan,Missouri, Ohio, Washington and other states where recent elections have been decided by narrow margins.

Joseph Rich, who left his job as chief of the section in 2005, said these events formed an unmistakable pattern.

"As more information becomes available about theadministration's priority on combating alleged, but not well substantiated, voter fraud, the more apparent it is that its actions concerning voter ID laws are part of a partisan strategy to suppress the votes of poor and minority citizens," he said.

B-I-N-G-O!

The article goes on to actually list all the instances of improper behavior, but you get the picture. Read the article, by Greg Gordon, for whom my team compiled an ass-load of information for him to puruse, and you'll get a sense of what this whole scandal is really about.

Kick ass and take names.