OBAMA ACORN SCANDAL BAILOUT COMMUNITY ORGANIZER VOTER FRAUD

What if Barack Obamas most important radical connection has been hiding in plain sight all along? Obama has had an intimate and long-term association with the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (Acorn), the largest radical group in America. If I told you Obama had close ties with MoveOn.org or Code Pink, youd know what I was talking about. Acorn is at least as radical as these better-known groups, arguably more so. Yet because Acorn works locally, in carefully selected urban areas, its national profile is lower. Acorn likes it that way. And so, Id wager, does Barack Obama. Obama Meets Acorn What has Barack Obama got to do with all this? Plenty. Lets begin with Obamas pre-law school days as a community organizer in Chicago. Few people have a clear idea of just what a community organizer does. A Los Angeles Times piece on Obamas early Chicago days opens with the touching story of his efforts to build a partnership with Chicagos Friends of the Parks, so that parents in a blighted neighborhood could have an inviting spot for their kids to play. This is the image of Obamas organizing were supposed to hold. Its far from the whole story, however. As the L. A. Times puts it, Obamas task was to help far South Side residents press for improvement in their communities. Part of Obamas work, it would appear, was to organize demonstrations, much in the mold of radical groups like Acorn. Although the L. A. Times piece is generally positive, it does press Obamas organizing tales on certain points. Some claim that Obamas book, Dreams from My Father, exaggerates his accomplishments in spearheading an asbestos cleanup at a low-income housing project. Obama, these critics say, denies due credit to Hazel Johnson, an activist who claims she was the one who actually discovered the asbestos problem and led the efforts to resolve it. Read carefully, the L. A. Times story leans toward confirming this complaint against Obama, yet the storys emphasis is to affirm Obamas important role in the battle. Speaking up in defense of Obama on the asbestos issue is Madeleine Talbot, who at the time was a leader at Chicago Acorn. Talbot, we learn, was so impressed by Obamas organizing skills that she invited him to help train her own staff. And what exactly was Talbots work with Acorn? Talbot turns out to have been a key leader of that attempt by Acorn to storm the Chicago City Council (during a living-wage debate). While Sol Stern mentions this story in passing, the details are worth a look: On July 31, 1997, six people were arrested as 200 Acorn protesters tried to storm the Chicago City Council session. According to the Chicago Daily Herald, Acorn demonstrators pushed over the metal detector and table used to screen visitors, backed police against the doors to the council chamber, and blocked late-arriving aldermen and city staff from entering the session. Reading the Herald article, you might think Acorns demonstrators had simply lost patience after being de