Well, well, well, here we have the cyber czar, which of course is another way of saying ‘thank you’ to Microsoft and MSNBC (‘MS’ standing for Microsoft in case you’ve been living in a cave with Osama bin Laden). You see, if you sell a crappy operating system full of holes subject to predatory hackers then you get a government-appointed czar who can oversee the adaptability of this operating system into the mainstream – that is, as long as you vertically-integrate your computer company with the mainstream media and push the politically correct agenda of the president. Sweeeeeet.

Gesss what?! This is precisely what happens when your neighbors are turned into spies just like in communist dictatorships. If your views are found to be “unacceptable” then you are singled-out. Obama stickers on cars parked at that condominium complex in Texas are okay, but military stickers are not. And let me add, this is happening in Texas, which was supposed to be the last bastion of freedom from federal government intrusion. Now you know something going on is fishy when this kind of crap happens in Texas. I really have say that I congratulate the Fox News affiliate in Dallas for having the guts to run this story and to LiveLeak for hosting the clip. This story speaks volumes about what happens when you give up your freedom. It’s a small, local story, but I wonder how many others are out there just like them. For example, there is a movement under way right now in New Hampshire by the ACLU to block people there from having tea parties. Yep, you heard me right.

I read the story about the July 4th tea parties on one of my favorite blogs, which is the Canada Free Press, and you can go here to read more about how they are now being systematically attacked. I mean, for heavens sakes you wouldn’t want informed people out in the streets speaking their mind would you? That would be very dangerous to the systematic destruction of liberties now taking place.

So, guess what! The battle lines are very clearly drawn now. All the players in this game have squared off, and now the truth is going to come out about what the hell is really going on here where trillions of dollars have vanished into thin air, car companies are broke, and ACORN, the vote-buying organization that put Obama into office, is going to run the 2010 census. Meanwhile, Pakistan is on the brink of being taken over by al Qaeda, there are terror attacks every day in Afghanistan, Iran is going full speed ahead with its nuclear program, Israel is preparing for war, and North Korea has declared that it is now at war with South Korea and the United States.

This is the moment of truth, which is something the mainstream media is going to have to take liking to for a change. Once again, kudos to the Fox News affiliate in Dallas and a very sharp eye of a contributor to LiveLeak for deftly running this story. I’m not so sure this was the kind of change Obama and his media coordinators had in mind, but the change that is coming is going to be like a giant tidal wave over the mainstream media, their yellow journalism corporate handlers, and the utterly corrupt Democratic Party.

Pay attention to his words, “This could happen to anybody. The government is stealing my business.”:

The politicization of the automobile bailout has now reached epic proportions. Obama’s car czar is Steve Rattner, who according to wikipedia is married to Maureen White, the former National Finance Chair for the Democratic Party. This is Chicago-style politics, where enemies are targeted and vote-buying is rampant via the use of ACORN. Mind you, this is just the tip of the iceberg because evidence is mounting that Obama himself was groomed by the Democratic machine [=mob] and brought up through the ranks and inoculated from criticism due to media complicity and their political correctness scam that tells people they are “racist” if they dare even level the smallest criticism against him. Major kudos go to Pamela Geller and AtlasShrugs for this story, who by the way laid out the Ilan Halimi story when the rest of the mainstream media ignored it.

The long tradition of unequivocal U.S. support for Israel has come to an abrupt halt. Mr. Obama is now being quoted as having lowered the boom on Israel, which is for the lack of a better word, breathtaking. Obama is now fully engaged in the systematic dismantling of long-standing U.S. domestic and foreign interests.

By Aaron Klein
WorldNetDaily
May 30, 2009

President Obama and his administration told Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas during a meeting last week the U.S. foresees the creation of a Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital, according to a top PA official speaking to WND.

“The American administration was very friendly to the position of the PA,” said Nimer Hamad, Abbas’ senior political adviser.

“Abu Mazen (Abbas) heard from Obama and his administration in a very categorical way that a Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital is in the American national and security interest,” Hamad said.

Read the groundbreaking work that exposes the threats to Israel from within and without in Aaron Klein’s “The Late, Great State of Israel” from WND Books.

Another PA official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told WND today that Obama informed Abbas he would not let Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “get in the way” of normalizing U.S. relations with the Arab and greater Muslim world.

“We were told from this new administration they will not allow a Netanyahu government to hurt their efforts of rehabilitating U.S. relations with the Arab and Islamic world, which is a high priority of Obama,” the official said, speaking during a visit to Cairo.

Also in Cairo today, Abbas met with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, where the Palestinian leader briefed Egypt’s president on his recent trip to Washington, saying the U.S. was committed to bringing about an end to Israeli construction in the West Bank.

Hamad’s comments about Jerusalem today come as controversy abounded regarding the U.S. position on Israel’s capital city.

Last week, the State Department refuted a speech in which Netanyahu said Jerusalem never will be divided.

“Jerusalem is Israel’s capital,” Netanyahu said at an event marking Jerusalem’s reunification. “Jerusalem was always ours and will always be ours. It will never again be partitioned and divided.”

In response, the State Department released a statement that Jerusalem “is a final status issue.”

“Israel and the Palestinians have agreed to resolve its status during negotiations. We will support their efforts to reach agreements on all final status issues,” the statement said.

Also last week, a top Palestinian Authority official claimed in a WND interview that the Obama administration told the PA that Jerusalem will never be united under Israeli sovereignty.

“Americans said an open Jerusalem – yes. But a united Jerusalem under Israeli sovereignty – no,” Hatem Abdel Khader, the PA’s minister for Jerusalem affairs, said in comments to both WND and Israel’s Ynetnews website.

“(The Obama administration) has made clear that Jerusalem must be accessible to everyone – but not united under Israel’s rule,” Khader said.

Khader claimed the U.S. is cooperating with the PA to “thwart Israel’s plans in Jerusalem.”

“When they collaborate with us in Israeli courts against home demolitions or the confiscation of land we see their attitude,” he said.

Khader told WND, “The Americans are very present on the ground, and they are making pressure over Israeli authorities and even municipalities.”

“They are acting according to the concept that the failure to establish a Palestinian state would jeopardize U.S. national security interests – and without Jerusalem there is no Palestinian state,” he said.

U.S. helps Palestinians live illegally near Temple Mount

Khader’s claim the U.S. is helping the Palestinians gain a foothold in Jerusalem is accurate. In April, WND reported that under intense American pressure and following a nearly unprecedented behind-the-scenes U.S. campaign, the Netanyahu government has decided not to bulldoze Palestinian homes built illegally on Jewish-owned property in Jerusalem.

The issue is critical since the 80 homes in question are located in Silwan, an eastern Jerusalem neighborhood close to the Temple Mount and Jerusalem’s Old City that the Palestinians claim as a future capital. Jewish groups have been working to fortify the community’s Jewish presence. Silwan is adjacent to the City of David, a massive archeological dig just outside the Temple Mount that is constantly turning up Temple artifacts.

Like tens of thousands of other Arab housing projects throughout eastern Jerusalem, the Palestinian homes in Silwan were illegally constructed on property long ago purchased by Jews. The Israeli government ordered the structures’ legal demolition.

But during a visit here in early March, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton strongly protested the planned bulldozing.

“Clearly this kind of activity is unhelpful and not in keeping with the obligations entered into under the Road Map,” she said. “It is an issue that we intend to raise with the government of Israel and the government at the municipal level in Jerusalem.”

The Road Map calls for Israel to freeze Jewish settlement expansion in the West Bank but does not bar Israel from dismantling illegally constructed Palestinian homes in Jerusalem.

WND learned that in the weeks since Clinton’s visit here, the U.S. mounted an intensive campaign lobbying the Israeli government against tearing down the illegal Palestinian homes in Silwan. The campaign included letters from the Middle East section of the State Department addressed to various Jerusalem municipalities, with copies of the letters sent to the offices of Israel’s prime minister and foreign minister. The letters called on Israel to allow the illegal Palestinian homes in Silwan to remain and stated any demolitions would not foster an atmosphere of peace.

Also, in a follow-up visit here, State Department officials made it clear to their Israeli counterparts the U.S. opposes the Silwan bulldozing.

According to sources in the Israeli government, including in Netanyahu’s administration, a decision has been made not to bulldoze the illegal Palestinian homes. The sources said the issue of the homes may be raised again in the future, but for the time being the houses will remain intact.

The sources attributed the decision against the bulldozing – which has not yet been announced – to the intense American campaign against the house demolitions.

Said one source in Netanyahu’s administration, “This was very frustrating to us. Can you imagine if a foreign government came in and told a city office in the U.S. not to tear down a house that was illegally constructed on someone else’s property?”

While Clinton opposed the Palestinian house demolitions, informed Israeli officials said the Obama administration is carefully monitoring Jewish construction in eastern Jerusalem and has already protested to the highest levels of Israeli government about evidence of housing expansion in those areas.

The officials, who spoke on condition that their names be withheld, said that last month Obama’s Mideast envoy, George Mitchell, oversaw the establishment of an apparatus based in the U.S. consulate in Jerusalem that closely monitors eastern Jerusalem neighborhoods, incorporating regular tours on a daily basis.

The officials said that in recent meetings Mitchell strongly protested Jewish construction in eastern Jerusalem. Mitchell also condemned the work of nationalist Jewish groups to purchase property in Jerusalem’s Old City, including in areas intimately tied to Judaism.

Israel recaptured eastern Jerusalem, including the Temple Mount – Judaism’s holiest site – during the 1967 Six Day War.

The Palestinians, however, have claimed eastern Jerusalem as a future capital. About 244,000 Arabs live in Jerusalem, mostly in eastern neighborhoods, out of a total population of 724,000, the majority Jewish.

Here you have proof positive that a known terrorist mastermind is now in Beirut. But wait a minute. The real story which the mainstream media won’t dare tell you because it doesn’t coincide with their Blame Bush theme is that Husayn al-Umari used to actually live in Iraq. Yes, a known terrorist was operating in Iraq. Imagine that for a second. The media could very well have been dead wrong about the war in Iraq being for no good reason. Known terrorists being in Iraq won’t even be mentioned in the mainstream media because it doesn’t fit with their current love fest with Obama, which is nothing short of being like pigs at the money slop trough. However, rest assured that the FBI knows about this, and now you do too. The only problem is that this asshole is now in Lebanon, and ironically Lebanon is expected to elect a Hamas government. You can put two and two together very quickly. There is likely to be war in Lebanon again, and the Iranian influence cannot be overlooked any further. Like we’ve been saying for quite some time, folks, there is trouble on the horizon and quietly Obama is morphing into Bush, while he throws leftist bones to the people who think he is on their side. The media that covered for Obama knows that the clock is ticking on their little escapades, and they had better watch their ass or else they might be next on the chopping block.

By Adam Goldman
Associated Press
May 29, 2009

A master bomb maker who once targeted commercial airliners and was suspected of aiding the Iraq insurgency has fled to Lebanon, an FBI official has confirmed.

There is information that 73-year-old Abu Ibrahim was reportedly in Tripoli, a city in northwest Lebanon, the official said earlier this week. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity because the investigation continues.

The Palestinian terrorist is accused of bombings in the 1980s. He was indicted in the 1982 bombing of Pan Am Flight 830. The explosion killed a 16-year-old boy and wounded more than a dozen passengers as the plane headed to Honolulu from Tokyo.

The FBI has been looking to catch Ibrahim for decades and has recently increased its efforts to arrest him. In April, an FBI committee recommended Ibrahim be placed on agency’s list of most wanted terrorists.

The FBI is also trying to tap a State Department reward program to boost the bounty for his capture to millions of dollars. Ibrahim’s real name is Husayn al-Umari.

Ibrahim has remained out of reach for decades while living in Baghdad. With the help of the Iraqi Intelligence Service, Ibrahim ran a feared terrorist organization called “15 May,” according to federal court documents and terrorism experts. The group is named for the date Israel was founded.

Ibrahim, a devout Sunni who was born in Tripoli, is suspected of carrying out more than two dozen attacks on mainly American, Israeli and Jewish targets in a career that spans decades.

The Iraqi government also used him to conduct terrorism operations against Syria and Iran. In his book, former CIA spy master Duane R. Clarridge wrote that Ibrahim had a “talent for constructing ingenious machines of death, such as refrigerator trucks whose cooling pipes were filled with liquid explosives.”

He’s accused of training a slew of operatives in the art of bomb making whose expertise metastasized across the Middle East, including Mohammed Rashed and Abu Zyad. Rashed is behind bars at the Supermax maximum-security prison in Florence, Colo. He’s scheduled to be released in less than four years.

Some still remain unaccounted for, like Zyad.

Zyad, 60, was born in the West Bank city of Bethlehem. He assisted Ibrahim in Baghdad in the early 1980s, according to CIA investigative notes obtained by The Associated Press. The notes say Zyad lived in Sudan for two years before leaving for Algiers, Algeria, in 1989. His current whereabouts are unknown.

A former senior CIA official who was stationed in Baghdad after the Iraqi invasion in 2003 said there were serious suspicions that Ibrahim had helped the insurgency.

The official said Ibrahim had recently slipped into Lebanon through Syria after coalition forces began to increase efforts to drive insurgents out of the Mosul area and the Saladin Province in Iraq, where Ibrahim had been operating.

The former CIA official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he still works in the Middle East, said that Ibrahim had also gone to Tripoli. Ibrahim’s second wife, Selma, is from Tripoli.

“He’s got a lot of resources there,” the official said.

Ibrahim’s family also has connections to the Badawi Palestinian refugee camp on the northern fringes of Tripoli, according to the CIA notes.

The U.S. does not have an extradition treaty with Lebanon.

All you suckers out there just wait. Your day is coming. Who knows, maybe it’s already here. The media plays up all this bullshit about Sotomayor being a compelling life story, while at the same time they won’t tell you that quietly Obama is continuing the same policies vis-a-vis the war on terror as his predecessor George W. Bush.

Then there’s MSNBC, CNN, and Fox seemingly having their “war” between themselves, which is nothing more than a ruse, a put on, a show to make you think that there are two distinct “sides” to all the issues of our day. And they toss around the race football and keep us all involved in complete and utter mindless drivel while they cover for the government as they plunge this country further and further into debt.

You have heard the news already. The price of oil is rising right smack dab in the middle of a recession. The long term T-Bill rates are soaring indicating that inflation is on the horizon, i.e., the last nail in the economic coffin of America. The international banking cartel is well on its way to securing American sovereignty for itself, and the media couldn’t be happier.

The media has left behind its constitutionally guaranteed right to be free of government control and instead joined with them. There is money in it by golly, and in order to join in on the rapidly forming new world order they had to get on the bandwagon if for no other reason than not to become like General Motors.

It’s all about survival now. The floodgates are open, and the election of Barack Obama can easily be traced right back to Democratic Party shenanigans in funding ACORN and bringing their poster child up through the ranks with media complicity. Everybody wins and nobody loses, except maybe if you happen to be George W. Bush, whom the media raked over the coals relentlessly and called him every name in the book. But of course, the media won’t take responsibility for promoting the WMD story no more than they will take responsibility for promoting political correctness on steroids as a foil for what is otherwise nothing short of election theft by buying votes through ACORN, which received taxpayer money.

The media is so horny now that they want to take openly racists judges and tell you that they have a compelling life story. They want to shove this crap down your throat because if you open your mouth then you are racist. You are not following along with the great plan to bankrupt America so that the international banking cartels can bend you over and have their way with you some more. There is no other plausible way of analyzing the motive behind the systematic destruction of America than in this manner.

If people are not asking themselves now what happened to the America they once knew, then soon they will be. But unfortunately when that time comes the media will have had their way with you so much that you will be completely and utterly pacified and turned into their bitch. You will be made to believe that there is a battle under way between two competing ideologies, when in fact there is only one – power and control.

You heard it folks. Be advised. That’s all.

-TDN

More on the New Black Panther Party:

Here is the deal: Set up some non-profits, turn them into recipients of government grant money under the guise of providing “mortgage advice”, and then use the money to give people houses and for the rest of them promise that the minimum wage that they earn at their jobs will go up, and all courtesy of the taxpayer in the name of wealth redistribution and “fairness”. Now, it shouldn’t take much to persuade people that since Obama and ACORN are basically synonymous then it should come as no surprise why the U.S. economy is shrinking at the breathtaking rate that it is. Big major kudos go out to McNorman for handing us this memo from ACORN’s director of political operations, Zach Polett. And yet my question is, how could a non-profit organization be involved in politics in the first place and maintain its non-profit status?????

To: Interested Parties

Overview

ACORN sees the need to move forward aggressively to take advantage of the unprecedented electoral capacity built in 2004 with a program that combines voter registration, issue-based voter education and mobilization, volunteer recruitment and training, progressive ballot initiatives in 2005 and 2006 and election administration campaigns with a longer-range effort focused on marginal state legislative districts, the Congressional redistricting process and marginal Congressional Districts.

2005 Project & Priorities

1. Bridge Funding

1. Political Operatives/Organizers: We need to fund the positions of the 20 top political organizers we developed through the 2004 electoral cycle so that we can keep our management team intact and spend the time from December 1, 2004 through June 30, 2005 evaluating the 2004 voter registration and voter turnout work, developing the plans and funding for the 2005 and 2006 projects discussed below, and beginning work on the long-term precinct network project. Cost: $700,000, half of which is raised or committed.

2. Community Organizers: ACORN and the American Institute for Social Justice (AISJ) are conducting a 5-month organizer training program from November 2004 through the beginning of April 2005 with 70 of the best and most dedicated field organizers and canvassers from 2004’s voter participation work. The goal of this program is to retain some of critical field organizing capacity built during the unprecedented 2004 civic engagement work conducted by ACORN (and others) and, through direct on-the-ground organizing drive training, turn them into longer-term ACORN community organizers, with both community organizing and voter engagement skills and vision. Graduates of this organizer training program will be assigned both to existing ACORN offices to build active membership and a volunteer base from the communities targeted for voter registration and voter turn-out in 2004 and, once sufficiently experienced, to open new ACORN offices in strategically important cities and states. (see attachment for details)

2. Minimum Wage Ballot Initiatives

The overwhelming success of minimum wage increase ballot initiatives in Florida (71.5% in favor) and Nevada (65% in favor) this past November argues strongly that this strategy should be moved in many more states in 2006. Key initiative states where ACORN is exploring this strategy include OH, MI, AZ, CO and MO (see attached).

The thinking behind this strategy:

1. Message: Progressives in general, and Democratic candidates in particular, need to be out front and public on an issue that is 1) progressive; 2) popular with a broad electorate; and 3) separates Democrats from Republicans. Raising the minimum wage scores in all 3 categories.

2. Turn-Out: Preliminary analysis of turnout data from Florida indicates that turnout increased by an average of 18% over 2000 levels in the African-American precincts where ACORN and partners used the minimum wage initiative message to encourage turnout of previous non-voters, both through a door-to-door field program and through radio spots targeting this demographic. Strategies for encouraging base turnout in 2006 gubernatorial, Senate and Congressional elections will be even more important, since turn-out is lower in non-presidential election years, thus creating more of a potential upside to increase minority turnout.

3. Setting a National Agenda: By running minimum wage initiatives in the largest possible number of states (and in cities and counties where state law allows), we elevate this popular issue of fundamental fairness (“people who work hard 40 hours per week should be able to support their families and you simply can’t do that on $210 per week”) on the national stage. Voters see raising the minimum wage as a moral issue – it’s simply the right thing to do.

In addition, we will seize opportunities that exist to run municipal minimum wage initiatives in states where this hasn’t been pre-empted by state law. Initiative campaigns planned for 2005 include Albuquerque, New Mexico and a 3-city campaign in Alameda County, California (Oakland, Berkeley and Emeryville), taking advantage of ACORN’s successful 2003 minimum wage initiative campaign in San Francisco that raised the minimum wage there to $8.50 per hour.

3. Full-Scale Minority Voter Registration and Turnout Projects – New Jersey and Virginia

New Jersey and Virginia are the two states with gubernatorial and legislative elections in 2005. ACORN has multiple offices in both. Neither state had vast registration projects in 2004, so there is much work to be done.

4. Long-Term Voter Registration – Neighborhoods and High Schools

In 2005 and 2006 we will continue our 2003 – 2004 voter registration program in which we registered 1.125 million voters, though at a reduced level. States emphasized will be those with 2006 elections. Whereas in 2004, because of the magnitude of the program, we produced the majority of our registrations by hiring and training local residents from ACORN neighborhoods, in 2005 we will invest more of our energy and resources into developing volunteer-based registration programs, using full-time organizers to recruit and train volunteers. Preliminary voter registration goal for the 2005 – 2006 cycle is 450,000.

In addition we will work in 2005 to institutionalize the high school senior voter registration project we tested in the spring of 2004. By working with and through local school administrators, their national associations (including the Council of Great City Schools and the American Association of School Administrators), and the two major national teachers’ unions, our methodology is to gain access to high school seniors in minority communities through assemblies, English classes (since all high school seniors take English), and school cafeterias to register them to vote and, where possible, create volunteer voter registration opportunities for them in the larger community.

5. Precinct Networks

In 25 targeted ACORN cities we will employ a full-time political organizer who will recruit, train and support a network of 60 – 120 ACORN electoral activists who will build and maintain precinct networks in their communities. Responsibilities of these precinct network volunteers will be to maintain ongoing contact with approximately 30 residents of their community, including registering to vote those who aren’t already registered, involving them in ballot-initiative and other electoral campaigns, contacting them bi-monthly to invite them to meetings and forums with elected officials, and then in the 4 weeks prior to an election contacting them 3 times each to turn-out to vote.

6. Swing Congressional and State Legislative Districts Project

This is a long-term, multi-faceted project with the following goals:

1. Impact the post-2010 Congressional redistricting process by building progressive electoral majorities in swing state legislative districts in states where partisan control of legislative bodies is potentially in play.
2. Organize in 10 – 20 selected Congressional Districts where recent close elections and/or demographic shifts make them likely swing districts.

The strategy here is to build the long-term, targeted organizing and electoral capacity needed if we are to have a Congress with a progressive majority. The redistricting process is key, since it is unlikely that there are enough competitive House districts to end right-wing control of the House of Representative before 2012. But we need to start now.

The first step is to review the literature analyzing the redistricting process state-by-state, determine which states’ re-districting processes are in the hands of state legislatures (most), which state legislative bodies have a close enough Democrat-Republican ratio to be in play, and which state house and state senate districts in those states are competitive. With this information, one can then target appropriate legislative districts. We have identified an organizer with previous experience with 21st Century Democrats and the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee who we would like to hire to develop this targeting plan.

The program in a district has three parts:

1. ACORN community organizing: ACORN needs to build on-going, permanent, issue-based neighborhood organizations in the low-to-moderate income communities of the selected districts.

2. Canvass: We need to run a door-to-door canvass, with a fundraising component, in working, middle and upper-middle income communities that identifies voters who support progressive issues and builds an on-going membership and voter file of those people.

3. Political Campaign Capacity: We need to put a political operative into the district (or a cluster of 2 or more districts) who will work with local organizations and local affiliates of national organizations to build the electoral capacity (field, message, lists, candidate recruitment, etc.) that sets us up to run successful state legislative and Congressional campaigns.

The way to prevent what Tom DeLay did in Texas in 2003 is to make sure that right-wing forces don’t have control of both houses of the state legislature and the Governor’s office in states where the legislature determines re-districting. That way, even if it isn’t possible to adopt a re-districting map that favors progressives, one can prevent a right-wing gerrymandering by throwing the process into the courts, helping to ensure at least a “neutral” map.

7. Election Administration Project

In the spring of 2004 Project Vote, in partnership with ACORN and others, conducted a $1.1 million program in 13 states to help ensure that local and state election administration officials enabled every vote to count by getting all the millions of new voter registration cards added to the voter rolls and by getting states to implement positive aspects of the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA) and the Help America Vote Act (HAVA). We learned from this effort that “the devil is in the details” and that engagement with local and state election administration officials is necessary to make the election machinery work for previously non-participating voters. In 2005 and 2006 we will conduct neighborhood-based campaigns to get election administration services (machines, poll workers, polling places) delivered to low-income and minority precincts at the same level they’re provided to other communities, thus eliminating the “long-lines” problem that plagued low-income precincts in Ohio and other states in 2004; deploy trained election administration project staff in 25 major metropolitan counties; challenge in partnership with the Advancement Project and other legal support centers the improper use of provisional ballots to deny voters their franchise; and move a campaign, initiated in 2004, to get state governments to implement the provisions of NVRA that require them to provide voter registration services to clients of their food stamp and other social service agencies. The 2004 work on the project was funded by grants from the Open Society Institute, Proteus Fund, Rockefeller Family Fund, HKH and Bauman Family Foundation.

ACORN and the American Institute for Social Justice (AISJ) are conducting a 5-month organizer training program from November 2004 through the beginning of April 2005 with 70 of the best and most dedicated field organizers and canvassers from 2004’s voter participation work. The goal of this program is to retain some of critical field organizing capacity built during the unprecedented 2004 civic engagement work conducted by ACORN (and others) and, through direct on-the-ground organizing drive training, turn them into longer-term ACORN community organizers, with both community organizing and voter engagement skills and vision. Graduates of this organizer training program will be assigned both to existing ACORN offices to build active membership and a volunteer base from the communities targeted for voter registration and voter turn-out in 2004 and, once sufficiently experienced, to open new ACORN offices in strategically important cities and states.

Organizer Trainee Selection & Recruitment

The majority of the organizer trainees will come from the best field managers, organizers and team leaders from ACORN’s 2004 voter participation program. ACORN had over 400 political organizers and team leaders working on the project, leading a team of over 8000 GOTV canvassers. We intend to produce 70 organizers from this pool of 400, which means retaining 17.5%. From October 1st through November 5th we conducted an interview and assessment process with all political organizers and team leaders and some canvassers to determine who are candidates for careers in community organizing. This process produced 320 organizer-trainee candidates who we put through a 2-day Organizer Academy (conducted in a dozen cities) the weekend after the election. From these Academies, we identified 210 trainees whowe enrolled in a paid 2-week organizer training project ending just before Thanksgiving. We expect to retain 140 of these trainees for a 2nd 2 ½ week training program running Nov 29 – Dec 15, followed by a 3-day national training in New Orleans from Dec 16 – Dec 19weeks. Like the airlines, we intend to overbook, so we expect about 70 trainees to come from this pool, that we will whittle down to the 40 – 50 we project. Most of the trainees from this pool will be African-American and Latino organizers, many of whom are long-term residents of the communities where they will be working.

The other group of trainees will come from outreach we will do to the even larger pool of people working for a variety of groups and campaigns on the 2004 election. We will hold a series of 2-day Organizer Academies in selected cities in the first half of November to which we will invite voter participation and campaign workers who want to be considered for full-time, long-term organizing positions. We require a minimum one-year commitment, after training, from anyone seeking to enter the program. On the last day of the Academies our trainers conduct exit interviews and offer positions in the paid on-the-job training program to the best people from the Academy. We expect to produce 20 – 30 of the 70 organizers from this pool.

Training Locations

We’re finalizing the list of training sites over the next two weeks, but our current list is as follows:

FL – Miami/Ft. Lauderdale

FL – Orlando

MI – Detroit

MO – Kansas City

NC — Charlotte

NM – Albuquerque

OH – Cincinnati

OH – Cleveland

OH – Columbus

OR – Portland

PA – Philadelphia

PA – Pittsburgh

Training Program & Schedule

Our current plan is to hold an initial 2 ½ week training module from November 8 – November 24; a second 3 week training module from November 29 – December 19, ending with the 3 – 4 day national training conference; and then a 2 month organizing drive training module from January 3 – March 5. At the completion of this 4 – month training program, organizers will have the skills to build and maintain issue-based, membership-run community-based organizations that have a clear empowerment and electorally-oriented agenda, geared around increasing voter participation long-term and building a voter participation in the community.

4-Month Budget

Organizer Trainee Salaries & Fringe $840,000

Trainers 224,000

3 Day Training Conference 66,300

Travel & Lodging 75,600

Other Expenses 84,000

TOTAL $1,289,900

For further information, contact Zach Polett at 501-376-6451 or via email at poldirect@acorn.org.

There are 22 states that allow statewide ballot initiatives on the minimum wage (AK, AZ, AR, CA, CO, FL, ID, ME, MA, MI, MO, MT, NE, NV, ND, OH, OK, OR, SD, UT, WA, WY).

Seven of these (AK, CA, FL, ME, MA, OR, WA) have already raised the minimum wage about the federal, either by legislation or initiative, so are probably off the list, though some (e.g. California) might be considered for another run to raise it still higher. (Nevada passed in 2004 but has to be passed twice to become law so will be on the ballot in 11/06 as well.) That leaves 15 remaining states for consideration. Some of these are small, highly-conservative Western states that may or may not make sense. Following is a list of states, in very rough order of priority, where we believe minimum wage ballot initiative campaigns should or could be run in 2005 – 2006 or, in some cases, in 2008.

Analysis still needs to be done on match-up with marginal House and state legislative races.

2006 Minimum Wage State Ballot Initiatives (in very rough order of priority)

STATE KEY 2006 RACES/Other Factors

1) Ohio Governor (Open Seat — now held by term-limited Republican Governor Taft); DeWine (R) running for Senate re-election; key 2008 Presidential Battleground

2) Nevada Governor (Open Seat – now held by term-limited Republican; Ensign (R) running for Senate re-election. (Has to be passed twice – 2004 & 2006 – to become law.)

3) Michigan Stabenow (D) running for Senate re-election; Granholm (D) running for Governor re-election

4) Arizona Napolitano (D) running for Governor re-election; Kyl (R) running for Senate re-election

5) Missouri Talent (R) running for Senate re-election

6) Nebraska First-term Senator Ben Nelson (D) up for re-election; won with just 51% of vote in 2000

7) Colorado

Arkansas Open Seat Gubernatorial Race with AG Beebe (D) and Lt. Gov Rockefeller (R) likely candidates.

9) Montana Burns (R) running for Senate re-election got just 51% of vote in 2000.

10) California (Already $6.75 via initiative, but SF is $8.50; could do $7.50 or $8.00 plus indexing); Schwartzenegger (R) running for Governor re-election – unless he goes for Senate – and Feinstein (D) running for Senate re-election.

Other Initiative States w/o Minimum Wage above the Federal Level (6)

Idaho

North Dakota

Oklahoma

South Dakota

Utah

Wyoming

City & County Minimum Wage Ballot Initiatives

In addition to state ballot initiatives, there is a smaller list of cities and counties where one could run minimum wage increase ballot initiative campaigns, along the lines of the successful 11/03 San Francisco initiative that increased the minimum wage to $8.50, indexed for inflation, and without a tip credit exemption. Following is an initial list of these:

City/County Minimum Wage Initiatives

1) Albuquerque, NM Santa Fe passed minimum wage in 2003; ACORN is starting the preparation now to put minimum wage on the ballot in Albuquerque in the fall of 2005.

2) Alameda County, CA ACORN planning now for simultaneous minimum wage ballot initiatives in the 3 Alameda County cities of Oakland, Berkeley and Emeryville.

3) Los Angeles, CA

4) San Diego, CA

5) Milwaukee, WI

For further discussion or information, contact:

poldirect@acorn.org

Cute post @: formerobamasupporters.com . Kudos and laughs go out to our bud, McNorman for listing TDN and this other BHO site on his blogroll.

The photo below captures a disturbing trend that is beginning to affect US wildlife.

Animals that were formerly self-sufficient are now showing signs of belonging to the Democratic Party… as they have apparently learned to just sit and wait for the government to step in and provide for their care and sustenance.

This photo is of a Democrat black bear in Montana nicknamed Bearack Obearma.