Category Archives: news

"Death threat, vandalism hit ACORN after accusations"

The conviction of ACORN without waiting for anything like a pesky investigation continues. As reported in the Miami Herald:

An ACORN community organizer received a death threat and the liberal-leaning voter registration group’s Boston and Seattle offices were vandalized Thursday, reflecting mounting tensions over its role in registering 1.3 million mostly poor and minority Americans to vote next month.

The article concludes by noting the larger implications of these events:

It’s unclear whether the alleged threats violated federal law, but Jonah Goldman, the director of the National Campaign for Fair Elections at the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, a nonpartisan, nonprofit legal organization that battles discrimination, argued that the Voting Rights Act should apply.

“A real concern is the impact that these terrible acts have on the people who registered through these registration drives,” Goldman said. “Legitimate, eligible voters who sign up through these registration drives may be understandably intimidated and choose not to show up at the polls, and the Voting Rights Act prevents voter intimidation.”

On a related note, ACORN has this statement up on their site regarding John McCain’s recent attacks on the organization:

“We appreciate Senator McCain’s effort to stir up the Republican base by attacking a community organization working to increase public participation in our democratic process. However, these attacks reflect an increasingly panicked candidate. Unfortunately, the Senator McCain we saw tonight is very different than the Senator McCain who stood shoulder to shoulder with ACORN at a February 20, 2006 immigration reform event.

It is clear for us to see that John McCain was for ACORN before he was against ACORN; he was for reform before he was against reform; and he was a maverick before he became erratic. What is really going on here is that Senator McCain and his allies are part of a coordinated effort to engage in what appears to be an unprecedented effort to suppress voter turnout. Repeating a lie doesn’t make it true, and the McCain campaign has resorted to the worst type of deceptions in regards to ACORN.”

Miami Herald link via LDpodcast’s twitter feed.

Exactly how stupid does John McCain think voters are?

Even grading on the “and yet the majority voted for W again in 2004″ curve, I just can’t believe that voters are as dumb as John McCain seems to think. McCain Accuses Press of ‘Gotcha Journalism’. Well, duh. You chose one of the worst possible running mates and almost every time she opens her mouth she says something that is moronic, if not also utterly false. No “gotcha” techniques required.

rate the debates

Free Press has launched Rate the Debates, which they’re describing as “a citizen-driven guide to better media coverage of the issues that matter most.” It’s an interesting experiment.

I’ve signed up, although this will interfere with my plan to turn the Vice-Presidential debate into a drinking game wherein one takes a drink every time Palin or Biden start an answer with the word “look.” It’s for the best, did you watch Biden’s last visit to Meet the Press? He said “look” so many times I couldn’t stop laughing. Not good, Joe, not good at all. (page 4 alone of the transcript has 11 looks!)

going to the dogs

This is very sweet, “Dogs make good listeners for Fort Pierce readers.” Kids get to practice their reading skills by reading to therapy dogs.

“What I like about the program,” said 8-year-old Kayleigh Kenslea of Port St. Lucie, “is that I can read to a sweet dog named Chance without being judged.”

According to event coordinator Dot Blair, the county’s literacy promoting program has 27 certified dogs and about 2,000 children participating.

Link courtesy of fark, where, unfortunately, I also ran across a less-heartwarming story about children and reading – a link to this (glitchy) CNN story about a study showing that only 12% of DC school children in the 8th grade are reading at grade proficiency. Even fewer are grade-proficient in math.