It's a floor wax AND a dessert topping!

I've always thought that conservatives should be against this. Once the churches get to feeding from the federal trough, they will no longer be able to quietly go along with the GOP's anti-governmental stance. All a Democratic President or Congress will have to do is threaten to cut funding for faith-based programs and say, "Sorry, the GOP tax cuts, deficits, or defense spending left us no choice."

From his campaign's memo:

The new partnership will not endanger the separation of church and state, so long as a few basic principles are followed. First, if an organization gets a federal grant, it will not be permitted to use that grant money to proselytize to the people it serves, and the group will forbidden to discriminate against them on the basis of their religion. And groups will be required to comply with federal anti-discrimination laws in their hiring practices—including Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits employment discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.

Second, federal dollars that go directly to churches, temples, and mosques will only be allowed to go toward secular programs. And Obama will ensure that taxpayer dollars only go to those programs that actually work.

Hyperbole-prone members of the netroots need to take a deep breath and have a little more (dare I say) faith in Obama.

Wright!

Most religious charities are incapable of separating their good works from their evangelization. Indeed, for many of their causes -- religion -- one of the most stringent forms of social control known to man -- is a vital part. What better way to reform a criminal than to turn him into a Christian (yes, I know I am disregarding a certain overlap)? But it is precisely this part of the Christian mission and the choice of religious dogma involved in which the Government must have no part.

Obama thinks he can do it -- does he think that all subsequent Presidents will be as scrupulous or will allowing the Federal government to intervene lead to much greater abuses in the future.

Jefferson and Madison were so scrupulous about the separation that they thought it improper for the state to provide religious books to a state run college -- yet they thought religion so important that they provided such books themselves as a separate library.

Obama's position falls well below this standard. He is a hazard to our nation.

This wasn't my favorite thing to hear him say, but I get it.

He comes from a background where the community organizers are generally the churches.

If I may, let me explains what I see in my community in Dallas - we have a tremendous homeless problem - I think because our winters are warm. Business wants these people out of downtown, but there's no where else to go. The only groups serving these people are based from churches and synagogues. We have a successful homesless outreach downtown run by a coalition of thePresbyterian Church, the Espicopal diocese and Temple Emanual . I'd like to see them get government money - they do tremendous good and no one else is helping down there.

I'm starting to really mis Bill Clinton. He pandered to the white working class so much more convincingly than Obama does.

Maybe Obama can fight for removing the moratorium on executions on Illinois, and pull the switch himself on a couple of Death Row inmates for us next.

AHH! I wish you TPM Lefties (myself included) would stop saying "Oh, I don't support Obama as much anymore because he's swinging to the middle".

I've got news for you, he never was left. He has always been about sticking to good ideas when they're good (including those from the right) and bad ideas when they're bad.

Bush has a good idea. I know, sounds like i'm insane, but hear me out. He has a good idea BUT his proposal is just a ridiculous partisan pile of crap that excludes denominations. Obama agrees with the idea but is coming up with a more comprehensive and workable proposal. This is what he has always done. This is what he will continue to do.

Lefties like us should get off our high horse and get this guy in as president!

The difference between Bush and Obama, is that Bush was just pandering to the religous right to get elected.

Obama actually believes he is supposed to help people, God help him!

I've got news for you, he never was left. He has always been about sticking to good ideas when they're good (including those from the right) and bad ideas when they're bad.

He's told us repeatedly that he refuses to be typecast and now I see the MSM is busy trying to convince the left that Obama is too far right, now that they have the right convinced he's too far left.
'

What he is is the opposite of an ideologue like Bush, who still stick to something regardless of its success because it fits the whole picture of the conservative movement.

Whatever the particular merits of this might be, it is now clear that Obama truly believes that you can only get elected President in this country if you adopt a raft of Republican (or at least Republican-lite) positions. He is buying into the same old conventional wisdom: we live in a "conservative" and religious country and thus only "centrist" Republican positions are permissible. This is why Democrats always lose -- the majority of the people don't vote on issues. They respond to bold leadership and conviction, even if they disagree on the particulars. Obama won't lose this time, though, but ultimately he'll probably only have George Bush to thank for that.

My enthusiasm has been curbed -- and I had a lot of enthusiasm to curb. At this point, as at other points in American history, the only hope is the courts. Even with the conservative majority it enjoys today, the Court is the only institution that has pushed back on Bushism.

Unfortunately, this election is quickly becoming (yet again) a choice between the bad and the less bad.

The numbers: in 2004 evangelical voters comprised 23 percent of the electorate, and 78 percent of them voted for Bush. In general, Bush ran much better than Kerry among those attending church at least weekly.

The Obama campaign is trying to undercut this Republican advantage among religious voters. If Obama can garner 40 percent of the evangelical vote (thereby picking up an extra 4.5 to 5 percent of the total popular vote), Kerry's 48-51 loss would turn into a 53-46 Obama win. Peel off a few of the mainstream and even Southern Baptist churchgoers (who may, for example, take umbrage at McCain's discarding his first wife in order to marry a rodeo queen/wealthy beer heiress to fund his political ambitions), and quickly Obama would get into the 57-42 win range.

It certainly makes sense for the Obama campaign to actively court the church-going demographic, but this faith-based, government-funded program makes me very uneasy. It can too easily become a political tool for the Left, just as it has been for the Right. Maybe those on the Right can figure this out and throw up some roadblocks. They are very good at doing roadblocks. On this one issue, I would be in lock-step with the roadblockers (after, of course, Obama is elected). Let's not slide down this theocratic slope.

Obama is nailing this.

Through this, attacking and undercuts Bush's false religiosity (and by implication, McCain's), while at the same time reinforcing his own commitment to poor people, to honesty, to actually freaking caring about people.

Obama is nailing this.

Through this, attacking and undercuts Bush's false religiosity (and by implication, McCain's), while at the same time reinforcing his own commitment to poor people, to honesty, to actually freaking caring about people

Boy do you have a great outlook - I love it. Instead of immediately thinking "Betrayal!" you look for the real and you found it.

I'm sympathetic to Noah Feldman's view that the Establishment Clause should be interpreted to be more accommodating of symbolic government support of religion (i.e., Ten Commandments displays) and less accommodating of schemes by the which the government lends significant financial support to religious groups. But after 25 years of Justice O'Connor at the center of the Supreme Court, the law in this regard is what it is (i.e., strict on symbolism, and easy on real dollars), and it's not changing anytime soon (at least not in the direction of more constitutional or political restraints on government dollars going to faith-based social service programs). Obama is pragmatic enough to see that this is the case and that there's no use fighting it, and he's idealistic enough to believe that in his administration he can fix the worst problems with Bush's faith-based initiative and help these churches work for people in an efficient and nondiscriminatory way. So I like this move a lot.

The problem here is that the seperation of church and state is supposed to go two ways to protect the government from the church, and also to protect the church from the government. Putting all these requirements keeps the wall up in one direction, but it tares it down in the other: By giving tax money to churches, and telling them how they can spend the money, the churches become Dependant on the government.

The whole purpose of the bush program was, essentially, to bribe churches. Obama's plan is really about the same thing, except to make them more pro-Obama/democratic.

It still perverts the church with Government, which is bad for everyone, just as when churches gain control over government.

Here's another one: you know who is fighting the Lieberry and think tank at SMU? A bunch of Methodist bishops. I've sent money for their lawsuit.

I get updates but right now, I can't tell exactly what is going on with that thing - there's a lot of legal maneuvering.

I went to law school at SMU and I'm just sick about it. I've told the law school now that they aren't getting another penny from us - my husband went there, too. I've written, I've told them to their faces the same thing - either get up and fight that thing or we'll never give you another dime.

So far I'm not having much affect.

Always a sticky wicket for me. Gay and churched in a parish that works with the homeless through Episcopal Community Services, one of the major providers along with Catholic Charities in the City

As much as I am for a firm separation of church and state, there are social programs provided by these religious organizations that cross all religious boundaries. A good example is the Jewish charity which receives funding from the NYS Department of Aging to subsidize adult day care progams etc - something I take full advantage of for my mom. My mom is Catholic and has a Muslim last name, so sufficed to say there is no discrimination on whom they provide the services to. So long as they are not permitted to proselytize or require participation in religious functions to receive services, I am all for funding to religious and community organizations to do the real social services work that the gov't either can't do effectively or has no interest in trying.

Hey shestheone, maybe it it time to start lookingand discussing the issues rather than the personalities of each candidate. If you have a problem with his take discuss it from a issue standpoint rather than a personality standpoint. Basically Obama believes that the way that Bush has run his government was poor, mismanaged, cynical, political but not all that bad from the perspective of identifiying the problems. In essence Bush is a failure because he lacked the leadership and management necessary to stand up to private interest and many in his own administration, namely Dick Cheny and David Addington. Obama does not push around so easily as you have seen throughout this election cycle! He has pissed off the left, he has pissed off the right, and he has unsettled the middle a times as well. But all the while we on the opposite side of those voting Republicans made up about 36 million voter's in the primary contest. The American people by and large what to see change and when they look at John McCain and the Republican brand it looks like more of the same. Look I understand you might have a problem with Obama's position but to move the conversation forward to hopefully find comprimise we have to discuss the issues not the person. Of course this falls in line with the Christian saying, "judge the sin not the sinner" but unfortunately we have been living in the twilight zone of GWB who says, "do as I say not as I do" which is just another way of saying that his actions are hypocritical to his words. That is the problem and this is the failure of leadership which many on the right thought Bush and the Repub Congress could deliver! Obviously they didn't and yet their message through this election cycle and the elction cycle of 2006 has been more of the same. I am an Americna like you and I have no doubt that this country would be hard pressed if we had to endure even 4 more years of Republican obstruction in Congress through the executive(have you seen the filibuster record, the Republican minority in congress just set an new benchmark in that subject), 4 more years of no action on Global Warming(which will inevatably mean 4 more years of failing US Automakers, while they complain about healthcare and regulation), 4 more years of privatization of our energy markets and our defense industry, 4 more years of Tax policy which rewards the top 5% at the expense of the bottom 95%(have you seen the Economic Equality Gap, a document produced by our goverment, it's ugly but please look for yourself), 4 more years of invisions on our personal liberties by an administration which flirts closer and closer to an authoritarian executive and permanent police state consdiring the war on Terror could last by many analyst accounts through the next century.

Look at all the issues and please tell me how anyone other than Obama and the rest of us 36 million voter's who voted in the Dem primaries are going to change this country for future generations? So let's have conversation but balanced with a healthy dose of reality and hard work! Let's change this country regardless of who is in the White House and if that means we have to expose both sides failures then weigh them both not one or the other because it is the issues which need to be solved and a president is just one facilitator in the process albeit a very large and important facilitator!

i am sorry if you look at OBAMA's track record here in Chicago in federally funded real-estate deals the groups he typically supported and received federal grants were all corrupt as well as slum lords at best. many of those same corrupt people are working in his campaign today. this is not change but opening up stealing our tax dollars to a new market. This is chicago politics at work here. For example, stand up federally funded real-estate programs, then poorly construct the buildings, steal most of the federal dollars out of the construction projects by using poor materials or shoddy work. then over the years while the buildings qiuickly fall apart you steal all of the continued federal dollars out of the program until the buildings are condemned. all the while not maintaining the appropriate code standards and upkeep mandated for the monies and buiding codes. the federal government eventually comes in and condemns the buildings. Then the same corrupt developers will buy up the real-estate at bottom basement prices, develop the land and sales it at a premium as premier real-estate.

i believe a child was just crushed by a shoddy constructed fence on one of OBAMA's famous real-estate projects that he forwarded federal dollars to. the young black child’s head was crushed under the weight of the heavy iron fence falling upon him while riding his bicycle. this is a prime example of OBAMA skirting federal dollars into real-estate to his friends and contributors in corruption here in chicago. Rezko was one of his friends who benefited. also the girl working in his campaign who used to work for habitat for humanity. Habitat was sited as being derelict I believe in the work being done here. Can you believe that! Chicago has even corrupted habitat here.

while i do agree that many faiths are doing great work if obama's history is any indication of his future this program just opens doors for minorities and smaller faith based entities to drain monies from the federal troth who never benefited as much as the larger wealthier faith groups that financially benefited under bush. i promise you there will be such stealing and profiteering that this country has never seen from this sort of program. And yes there will be programs who are legitimate but I am not interested in propping up the ones that are not with my tax dollars..

Up to this point, I would have been happy with either Obama or Hillary. After reading this, I'm having a hard time not seeing Obama as a repug dressed up as a Democrat.

This is strike One. Two more and I'll be sitting on the sidelines in November.

I help run a soup kitchen that is staffed by volunteers from 5 different churches. Anyone else is welcome to help but the volunteers are primarily through the churches. I am sure we receive state and federal funds somewhere up the chain - the food is through Second Harvest and grants cover all of our costs. It seems like a fairly efficient use $$ since no one is getting rich.

Preachers everywhere were heard saying, "You mean we don't have to pay taxes AND they're giving us other peoples tax money? Fuck yeah!"

They went on to say, "Oh...um, er, yeah! Ahem...Sure! No, we won't proseltize or use the money for any, you know, church things! Heh-heh, yeah, sure, OK." *wink-wink-nudge-nudge*

The Obama campaign's new motto: Pandering you can believe in.

Bush wanted the government to support faith-based charities, because he wanted government to eventually get out of the business of caring for the unfortunate. Obama is willing to allow the government to continue supporting faith-based charities, because he wants to attack issues like poverty and homelessness on multiple fronts - including government programs, churches, temples, mosques, secular charities, etc. As someone who is a progressive primarily because he cares about compassion and social justice, I am pleased with Obama's position. There is nothing intrinsically evil about religion, and I am tired of hearing people at progressive blogs say so. Nonreligious progressives should be more tolerant of people of faith (like Obama and the majority of Americans.) It is not pandering when one acts respectfully about the religious beliefs of fellow citizens. The Democratic Party is beautifully diverse. Let's keep it that way.

Bush's program is a patronage scheme -- basically giving ministers walking around money in exchange for the votes of their flocks and/or funding their wackadoo War on Gyno-American Autonomy program operations.

Now, I have no problem with Obama plumping up Quaker/Unitarian/UCC coffers or whatever, though that won't happen. I don't care that much about him pandering to religious types, though I think that's a really stupid electoral strategy since most the good little God-bothering Bushies will come home to McCain or sit it out regardless of how many crosses Obama hugs. But tell me again why government should fund church-based social programs instead of, you know, funding its own social programs?

I picked out some of the most glaring poieces of the article but it is very, very telling and extremely disappointing. the link is at the bottom as the article is 10 page long.

Grim proving ground for Obama's housing policy
The candidate endorsed subsidies for private entrepreneurs to build low-income units. But, while he garnered support from developers, many projects in his former district have fallen into disrepair.

New Evergreen/Sedgwick is managed by a company run by Cullen Davis, Allison Davis's son and also a contributor to Obama's campaigns. Cullen Davis said the problems were rooted in the way New Evergreen/Sedgwick was financed.

Lawndale Restoration was a collection of more than 1,200 apartments in 97 buildings spread across 300 blocks of west Chicago. It was owned by a company controlled by Cecil Butler, a former civil rights activist who came to be reviled as a slumlord by a younger generation of activists.

Allison Davis, a major fund-raiser for Obama's US Senate campaign and a former lead partner at Obama's former law firm. Davis, a developer, was involved in the creation of Grove Parc and has used government subsidies to rehabilitate more than 1,500 units in Chicago, including a North Side building cited by city inspectors last year after chronic plumbing failures resulted in raw sewage spilling into several apartments.
Antoin "Tony" Rezko, perhaps the most important fund-raiser for Obama's early political campaigns and a friend who helped the Obamas buy a home in 2005. Rezko's company used subsidies to rehabilitate more than 1,000 apartments, mostly in and around Obama's district, then refused to manage the units, leaving the buildings to decay to the point where many no longer were habitable.

Campaign finance records show that six prominent developers - including Jarrett, Davis, and Rezko - collectively contributed more than $175,000 to Obama's campaigns over the last decade and raised hundreds of thousands more from other donors. Rezko alone raised at least $200,000, by Obama's own accounting.

One of those contributors, Cecil Butler, controlled Lawndale Restoration, the largest subsidized complex in Chicago, which was seized by the government in 2006 after city inspectors found more than 1,800 code violations.

Butler and Davis did not respond to messages. Rezko is in prison; his lawyer did not respond to inquiries.

Most of all, they alleged that Chicago was interested primarily in redeveloping projects close to the Loop, the downtown area that was seeing a surge of private development activity, shunting poor families to neighborhoods farther from the city center. Only about one in three residents was able to return to the redeveloped projects.

"They are rapidly displacing poor people, and these companies are profiting from this displacement," said Matt Ginsberg-Jaeckle of Southside Together Organizing for Power, a community group that seeks to help tenants stay in the same neighborhoods.

"The same exact people who ran these places into the ground," the private companies paid to build and manage the city's affordable housing, "now are profiting by redeveloping them

Barack Obama was among the many Chicago residents who shared Daley's conviction that private companies would make better landlords than the Chicago Housing Authority.

He had seen the failure of the public projects in the mid-1980s as a community organizer at Altgeld Gardens, a large public housing complex on the far South Side.

He once told the Chicago Tribune that he had briefly considered becoming a developer of affordable housing. But after graduating from Harvard Law School in 1991, he turned down a job with Tony Rezko's development company, Rezmar, choosing instead to work at the civil rights law firm Davis, Miner, Barnhill & Galland, then led by Allison Davis.

The firm represented a number of nonprofit companies that were partnering with private developers to build affordable housing with government subsidies.

Obama sometimes worked on their cases. In at least one instance, he represented the nonprofit company that owned Grove Parc, Woodlawn Preservation and Investment Corp., when it was sued by the city for failing to adequately heat one of its apartment complexes.
"That's an example of a smart policy," the paper quoted Obama as saying. "The developers were thinking in market terms and operating under the rules of the marketplace; but at the same time, we had government supporting and subsidizing those efforts."

Obama translated that belief into legislative action as a state senator. In 2001, Obama and a Republican colleague, William Peterson, sponsored a successful bill that increased state subsidies for private developers. The law let developers designated by the state raise up to $26 million a year by selling tax credits to Illinois residents. For each $1 in credits purchased, the buyer was allowed to decrease his taxable income by 50 cents.

One of the earliest public-private partnerships of the type supported by Daley and Obama took place in the Woodlawn neighborhood, a checkerboard of battered apartment buildings and vacant lots just south of the University of Chicago.

Grove Parc Plaza opened there in 1990 as a redevelopment of an older housing complex. The buildings had a new owner and a major renovation funded by the federal government. Even the name Grove Parc Plaza was new.

The owner, a local nonprofit company called Woodlawn Preservation and Investment Corp., was led by two of the neighborhood's most powerful ministers, Arthur Brazier and Leon Finney. Obama had relationships with both men. In 1999, he donated $500 of his campaign funds to another of their community groups, The Woodlawn Organization.

Woodlawn Preservation hired a private management firm, William Moorehead and Associates, to oversee the complex. In 2001, the company lost that contract and a contract to manage several public housing projects for allegedly failing to do its job. The company's head, William Moorehead, was subsequently convicted of embezzling almost $1 million in management fees.

Woodlawn Preservation hired a new property manager, Habitat Co. At the time, the company was headed by its founder, Daniel Levin, also a major contributor to Obama's campaigns. Valerie Jarrett was executive vice president.

Residents say the complex deteriorated under Moorehead's management and continued to decline after Habitat took over. A maintenance worker at the complex says money often wasn't even available for steel wool to plug rat holes. But as late as 2003, a routine federal inspection still gave conditions at Grove Parc a score of 82 on a 100-point scale.

When inspectors returned in 2005, they found conditions were significantly worse. Inspectors gave the complex a score of 56 and warned that improvements were necessary. They returned the following year and found things had reached a new low. Grove Parc got a score of 11 and a final warning. Three months later, inspectors found there had been insufficient improvements and moved to seize the complex from Woodlawn Preservation.

After negotiations with tenants, the government agreed to allow a new company, Preservation of Affordable Housing, a Boston-based firm, to replace Habitat as the manager of Grove Parc. The company is negotiating to buy the development, which would then be demolished and replaced with new housing

Similar problems also plagued the next generation of affordable housing de velopment in Obama's district, created as part of the Daley administration's efforts to subsidize smaller apartment buildings scattered throughout neighborhoods.

One of the largest recipients of the subsidies was Rezmar Corp., founded in 1989 by Tony Rezko, who ran a company that sold snacks at city beaches, and Daniel Mahru, who ran a company that sold ice to Rezko. Neither man had development experience.

Over the next nine years, Rezmar used more than $87 million in government grants, loans, and tax credits to renovate about 1,000 apartments in 30 Chicago buildings. Companies run by the partners also managed many of the buildings, collecting government rent subsidies.

By the time Rezmar asked Chicago's city government for a loan on its final subsidized development, in 1998, the city's housing commissioner was describing the company in a memo as being in "bad shape." The Daley administration still made the $3.1 million loan.

Shortly thereafter, Rezmar switched from subsidized housing to high-end development, fueled by the money it had made in subsidized work. Rezko's companies also stopped managing the subsidized complexes.

Most of the buildings have since been foreclosed upon, forcing the tenants to find new housing.

All the while, Tony Rezko was forging a close friendship with Barack Obama. When Obama opened his campaign for state Senate in 1995, Rezko's companies gave Obama $2,000 on the first day of fund-raising. Save for a $500 contribution from another lawyer, Obama didn't raise another penny for six weeks. Rezko had essentially seeded the start of Obama's political career.

As Obama ascended, Rezko became one of his largest fund-raisers. And in 2005, Rezko and his wife helped the Obamas purchase the house where they now live.

Eleven of Rezmar's buildings were located in the district represented by Obama, containing 258 apartments. The building without heat in January 1997, the month Obama entered the state Senate, was in his district. So was Jones's building with rats in the walls and Frizzell's building that lacked insulation. And a redistricting after the 2000 Census added another 350 Rezmar apartments to the area represented by Obama.

But Obama has contended that he knew nothing about any problems in Rezmar's buildings.

Allison Davis, Obama's former law firm boss, dabbled in development for years while he worked primarily as a lawyer. He participated in the development of Grove Parc Plaza. And in 1996, Davis left his law firm to pursue a full-time career as an affordable housing developer, fueled by the subsidies from the Daley administration and aided, on occasion, by Obama himself.

Over roughly the past decade, Davis's companies have received more than $100 million in subsidies to renovate and build more than 1,500 apartments in Chicago, according to a Chicago Sun-Times tally. In several cases, Davis partnered with Tony Rezko. In 1998 the two men created a limited partnership to build an apartment building for seniors on Chicago's South Side. Obama wrote letters on state Senate stationery supporting city and state loans for the project.Continued

In 2000 Davis asked the nonprofit Woods Fund of Chicago for a $1 million investment in a new development partnership, Neighborhood Rejuvenation Partners. Obama, a member of the board, voted in favor, helping Davis secure the investment.

The following year, Davis assembled another partnership to create New Evergreen/Sedgwick, a $10.7 million renovation of five walk-up buildings in a gentrifying neighborhood. The project, a model of small-scale, mixed-income development, was subsidized by almost $6 million in state loans and federal tax credits.

Conditions deteriorated quickly. Chronic plumbing failures consumed the project's financial reserves while leaving undrained sewage in some of the apartments. In October, after repeated complaints from building residents, the city government sued the owners, and a judge imposed a $5,500 fine.

In 2000 Davis asked the nonprofit Woods Fund of Chicago for a $1 million investment in a new development partnership, Neighborhood Rejuvenation Partners. Obama, a member of the board, voted in favor, helping Davis secure the investment.

The following year, Davis assembled another partnership to create New Evergreen/Sedgwick, a $10.7 million renovation of five walk-up buildings in a gentrifying neighborhood. The project, a model of small-scale, mixed-income development, was subsidized by almost $6 million in state loans and federal tax credits.

Conditions deteriorated quickly. Chronic plumbing failures consumed the project's financial reserves while leaving undrained sewage in some of the apartments. In October, after repeated complaints from building residents, the city government sued the owners, and a judge imposed a $5,500 fine.

In 2000 Davis asked the nonprofit Woods Fund of Chicago for a $1 million investment in a new development partnership, Neighborhood Rejuvenation Partners. Obama, a member of the board, voted in favor, helping Davis secure the investment.

The following year, Davis assembled another partnership to create New Evergreen/Sedgwick, a $10.7 million renovation of five walk-up buildings in a gentrifying neighborhood. The project, a model of small-scale, mixed-income development, was subsidized by almost $6 million in state loans and federal tax credits.

Conditions deteriorated quickly. Chronic plumbing failures consumed the project's financial reserves while leaving undrained sewage in some of the apartments. In October, after repeated complaints from building residents, the city government sued the owners, and a judge imposed a $5,500 fine.

And although he has distanced himself from Rezko, Obama has remained close to others in the development community. Jarrett participates in the campaign's senior staff meetings. And Obama chose another close friend, Martin Nesbitt, as his campaign treasurer. Nesbitt is chairman of the Chicago Housing Authority, one of the key overseers of the shift toward private management and development.

As a result, some people in Chicago's poorest neighborhoods are torn between a natural inclination to support Obama and a concern about his relationships with the developers they hold responsible for Chicago's affordable housing failures. Some housing advocates worry that Obama has not learned from those failures.

"I'm not against Barack Obama," said Willie J.R. Fleming, an organizer with the Coalition to Protect Public Housing and a former public housing resident. "What I am against is some of the people around him."

Jamie Kalven, a longtime Chicago housing activist, put it this way: "I hope there is not much predictive value in his history and in his involvement with that community."

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2008/06/27/grim_proving_ground_for_obamas_housing_policy/?page=1

i can not tell you about mccain as they have not done an article on him nor am i from arizona. i live in chicago and OBAMA is my senator. i paid much more attention to his drama and manipulation because it directly affects me.

-State funding of religious institutions.
-Legalized warrantless wiretapping.
-Relaxed gun control laws.
-Capital punishment for non-capital crimes.
-Avoid public financing to bank as much money as possible from donors large and small.

Obama is a Republican's wet dream.

I thought that the government helped churches to do charitable work for the community by.. not taxing any of the money they raise...

Geee.....would this include government grants to the Creation Museum?

www.creationmuseum.org

I really love the picture of the cave woman frolicking with dinosaurs.

Damn-it....where is a non-theistic founding father when you need one!

Very disappointing. Tax laws and discrimination laws are almost never enforced against churches. Audits? Ha! It's a political no go.

I have nothing against religious charities and think they play a valuable role. I have nothing against the amount of money discussed either. Just don't mix the two. Unbelievable. Unbelievable.