Adopt A Loser

The Democrats appear to be adopting another losing position when it comes to the Banking Bill.

With crucial midterm elections nearing, Democrats have lost the advantage they've held for years as the party the public trusts to steer the economy.

I wonder if that loss of trust has anything to do with the banking bill proposals? In theory (whose?) there are supposed to be strict limits on Government borrowing for bailouts. In practice? Well it may not work out that way.

The Wall Street reform bill headed for a test vote on the Senate floor Monday night will allow the Federal Reserve to continue to pump trillions of dollars into major banks largely in secrecy, the co-author of House language that would open the central bank to an audit charged in a memo to the Senate.

“The Senate has a provision in its reform bill that purports to audit the Fed. But, it really doesn’t do anything of the sort. I’m going to run down the details for you, and reprint the legislative language so you can read it yourself,” writes Rep. Alan Grayson (D-Fla.).

It would not allow the GAO to look into the Fed’s massive purchase of toxic assets, its hundreds of billions in foreign currency swaps with other central banks or its open market operations, among other restrictions.

I'm convinced that there are never any accidents, oversights, or loopholes when it comes to drafting legislation. There are paid for holes and gratuitous holes. Never loop holes. Because if what Congress does is not intentional then what do we have? That would mean they do not even rise to the level of a Parliament of Whores.

The bail out "loop hole" is not the only criticism of the bill.

Relatively small institutions compared to the names often cited in the news, community banks typically operate in small towns, urban neighborhoods or the suburbs. Their remit usually involves funding small businesses that require credit in order to operate payrolls and to expand, and lending to families financing home purchases or college. Many of those familiar with the banking industry, overall, say that community banks bore little to no responsibility, on balance, for the financial meltdown that occurred in 2008. Nonetheless, an analysis of the Dodd bill indicates that if it passes, community banks will be subject to a whopping 27 new regulations that one individual who has worked with banks professionally and is closely tracking the legislation says “could threaten to put many community bankers out of business, thus reducing competition in the banking sector overall, and diminishing consumer choices.”

And that friends is how the government cartelizes the economy. They regulate the competition out of business.


And then there are the corporate governance issues.

Another handoff to unelected bureaucrats, this time at the SEC rather than at the Federal Reserve. They did so well with Madoff, why not give them the additional job of rewriting Amerian corporate governance? The "investors and pension holders" that Mr. Obama really has in mind are things like the New York and California state pension funds that have already been troubled by scandals and politicization. Shareholders have a role in corporations, as even good capitalists like Carl Icahn recognize. But using the proxy power to take control of companies away from management and directors and into the hands of radicals is straight out of the Saul Alinsky playbook.

The question is: why are these economy wreckers doing what they are doing? Is it really revolution by legislation? Stupidity? Campaign donations?

Or just help friends and hurt enemies.

Section 972 of the bill authorizes the SEC to require firms to allow shareholders to nominate directors in proxy statement. Such proxy access turns corporate board elections from a process designed to ensure that each board has a good mix of skills and experience into a popularity contest where the long-term interests of the stockholders become secondary to political agendas or corporate raiders. The process can also be used by labor unions, politicians who manage public pension funds, and others to force corporations to respond to pet social or political causes.

But that is not all. The real corker in my opinion is the silent Inspector General. You never heard what he didn't say? I think that is the point:

Does nothing to address problems at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. These two government-sponsored housing giants helped fuel the housing bubble. When it popped, taxpayers—because of an implicit guarantee by the U.S. Treasury—found themselves on the hook for some $125 billion in bailout money. Not only has little of this amount been paid back, but the Treasury Department recently eliminated the cap on how much more Fannie and Freddie can receive. Yet the bill does nothing to resolve the problem or reform these government-run enterprises.

I discussed some of that in The Best Congress Fannie Could Buy and Barney Frank Frankly Not Frank and ACORN Is Not About Nuts and probably a few other places.

The root cause of all this is the belief that a badly run corporation sucked dry by unions and management can be reformed by government intervention. I admit of the possibility. I deny the likelihood.

Cross Posted at Classical Values

HillBuzz Is On A Mission

The Boyz and Girlz at HillBuzz are on a mission.

Please offer your thoughts here, because our mission going forward includes but is not limited to:

(1) Dismantling and destroying ACORN, the SEIU, and all of their affiliates

(2) Taking down the Al Sharpton/Henry Gates/Jesse Jackson/Eric Holder Race Industry

(3) Reforming the nominating contests to make the primaries fraud-proof…while eliminating caucuses completely (as they are the easiest to game)

(4) Making sure Democrats do not pick the Republican candidate they want to run against in 2012

(5) Doing whatever we can to put the MSM out of business as payback for their rampant sexism and misogyny

2012 will be here before any of us know it. There is an awful lot of work to do. All of the above is so important to us personally that we’re willing to skip days off, willing to postpone vacations, willing to literally give all of our free time to this.

Please visit their site. Read the rest of their post. Offer what help or ideas you can.

As the Buzzers might say: We must take back the country from Dr. Utopia and his minions. Starting the job in 2010 and completing the work in 2012.

And do read the comment section. Lots of good ideas so far. Maybe it will trigger off more ideas.

Cross Posted at Classical Values

ACORN Is A Criminal Defendant

ACORN is in big trouble in Harry Reid's home state, Nevada.

A preliminary hearing Tuesday in the downtown Clark County courthouse has put ACORN on trial for the first time as a criminal defendant.

Until now, prosecutions for voter registration fraud have focused on ACORN workers, and authorities have secured guilty pleas from several who admitted to falsifying voter registration forms.

But when investigators from Nevada Secretary of State Ross Miller's office raided the ACORN Las Vegas office, Ross says they found a paper trail that implicated the ACORN organization itself.

"We came across policy manuals that outline their policy of creating a quota system, which is against the law," Miller told FOX News in an interview. "This, in fact, was something that was widespread and something the organization itself knew about, and it's important to hold the organization criminally accountable as opposed to the individual field directors."

It just keeps getting worse for these folks. I wonder what ACORN lawyer and community organizer Mr. Obama has to say about this?

Democrats used to say in the 2008 Campaign that "Jesus was a community organizer." I wonder if he ever condoned vote fraud? There is no record that he did. The record on ACORN being involved in vote fraud seems rather robust though.

And ACORN is being hurt by one of its own (well not any more) who is grassing on them.

At the preliminary hearing Tuesday, prosecutors and defense lawyers sparred over the arcane regulations of voter registration. But the highlight of the proceedings was the testimony of Christopher Edwards, the 33-year-old former ACORN field director who has cut a deal with prosecutors to testify against the group.

Edwards has begun to provide a view inside ACORN's operations, telling investigators about the Blackjack program in the Las Vegas office, which allegedly submitted the names of the starting lineup of the Dallas Cowboys as new voters.

"It's Las Vegas, it's blackjack," Edwards testified, describing what he called the "Blackjack bonus," saying ACORN set a quota of 20 cards per day for workers, and 1,000 a week for the group's political organizers. Edwards described a huge sign in the ACORN office that read: "Blackjack Bonus, 21 cards, extra 5 dollars," and said the program was instituted with the approval of higher-ups.

In fact, he said, other ACORN offices were jealous of the Blackjack program. Edwards said there were problems with payroll fraud at ACORN, noting that a Detroit voter registration director paid himself twice, falsely claiming he was also a canvasser.

If ACORN loses its case it could lose its Nevada tax exempt status. And then there is the criminal probe in New York.

What I wonder is when the SEIU comes in to the mix in a public way?

Cross Posted at Classical Values

SEIU Factor In Illinois Senat Race

Illinois Republicans are making efforts to connect the Democrats to the SEIU in the race for Obamas old Senate Seat. Roland "I am not a crook" Burris (D - Crook County) is currently keeping the seat warm.

Illinois Republicans are using a union endorsement Democrat Alexi Giannoulias received Thursday to again try to make disgraced former Gov. Rod Blagojevich a central figure in the U.S. Senate race.

The powerful 170,000-member Illinois chapter of the Service Employees International Union endorsed Giannoulias, the state treasurer, in his bid for President Barack Obama's old Senate seat, and Republicans jumped at the chance to point out the union's ties to Blagojevich.

SEIU was one of the largest contributors to Blagojevich's campaigns before lawmakers removed him from office in January after his arrest on federal corruption charges that included accusations he tried to sell or trade Obama's Senate seat to enrich himself.

One of the things Blagojevich wanted, according to a federal indictment, was a high-paying job at a union organization affiliated with SEIU. Tom Balanoff, president of SEIU's Illinois chapter, has said he will make a good witness for the prosecution at Blagojevich's trial.

The GOP suggested the endorsement reflected badly on Giannoulias and pressed him to explain why he would accept it.

As I predicted earlier today the SEIU is the next target in the effort to pull down the ACORN family. What I did not expect was that the shots would come from the GOP. I figured it would be Breitbart or Beck leading the charge.

Cross Posted at Classical Values

Cannae

Bill Whittle has a marvelous video that you should watch.

And what is Breitbart's strategy for continuing the attack? In a word make ACORN sue him. Which it has done. What was O'Keefe and Gile's response when a suit was first mooted? "Bring it on."

Kathleen Parker suggests the next front in the war. SEIU. And in the process explains why the public option is so critical to Obama's plan to neuter the American people.

Just last week, the Kansas City Star reported that two state agencies acting on an SEIU public records request sought to identify in-home health workers who care for the elderly and disabled. After complaints, the state acknowledged that it was under no legal obligation to provide the information and ceased helping the SEIU. Unionizing is not a state function, needless to say. And never mind the invasion of privacy.

One needn't be a mathematician to imagine what a national health-care option might mean to a union in search of new dues-paying recruits. The SEIU, which has promised "to fight tooth and nail" for a public option, is demonstrably persuasive. In Illinois, former governor Blagojevich (thank you for your patience) helped position the SEIU so that it could unionize health-care workers when he signed an executive order allowing collective bargaining. The SEIU showed its appreciation in advance by becoming Blagojevich's largest contributor, handing over $1.8 million for his two gubernatorial campaigns.

This war is not over. Not by a long shot. Keep at them Andrew. Keep at them Glenn.

You can find out what Andrew is up to at Big Government.com and of course Glenn can be found at FOX.

H/T Instapundit

Cross Posted at Classical Values

Bring It On

In the above video the ACORN outers, Hanna Giles and James O'Keefe, say about potential suits from ACORN, "Bring It On". Well ACORN has brought it on.

Community activist group ACORN is suing the makers of a hidden-camera video that showed employees of its Baltimore office giving tax advice to a man posing as a pimp and a woman posing as a prostitute.

The liberal group contends that the audio portion of the video was obtained illegally because Maryland requires two-party consent to create sound recordings.

This has got to be the dumbest political move since Bill Clinton said, "I did not have sex with that woman."

So what does Althouse think? She says:

Glenn Reynolds is pretty sure ACORN is falling into a trap.

Yes, it's almost as if the real point of the videos was to provoke a lawsuit that would open ACORN to the legal intrusions of discovery. And of course, Giles and O'Keefe will get even more publicity, and it shouldn't be hard for them to attract aggressive legal counsel and a hefty litigation fund.

I have heard lots of folks in comments to this story offering to donate to a legal defense fund. It is almost as if ACORN wanted to keep this story alive.

As to keeping the story alive? I was already getting tired of it and hadn't planned to write anything further since the story had served its purpose. It got the Census Bureau to sever ties with ACORN.

H/T Instapundit who thinks as Althouse pointed out, "I’M PRETTY SURE THEY’RE FALLING INTO A TRAP". Yes they are. Click on the Instapundit link for more.

Cross Posted at Classical Values

Overheard At Althouse

In the comments.

It's like when Palin seized control of the terms of the health care debate with a post on her Facebook page. The world has turned absolutely upside down..

Nice feather in the cap for Democrats. Punked by a chick on Facebook. And arguably one of thee dumbest chicks on Facebook, which is saying something.

Evidently she is a lot smarter than Democrats. Which is saying something considering how the Democrats are always braying about how smart they are.

Obama Was A Trainer For ACORN

Here is what ACORN had to say about Mr. Obama.

Since then, we have invited Obama to our leadership training sessions to run the session on power every year, and, as a result, many of our newly developing leaders got to know him before he ever ran for office. Thus, it was natural for many of us to be active volunteers in his first campaign for State Senate and then his failed bid for U.S. Congress in 1996. By the time he ran for U.S. Senate, we were old friends. And along about early March, we started to see that the African-American community had made its move: when Sen. Obama’s name was mentioned at our Southside Summit meeting with 700 people in attendance from three southside communities, the crowd went crazy. With about a week to go before the election, it was very clear how the African-American community would vote. But would they vote in high enough numbers?

It seemed to us that what Obama needed in the March primary was what we always work to deliver anyway: increased turnout in our ACORN communities. ACORN is active on the south and west sides of Chicago, in the south suburbs and on the east side of Springfield, the state capital. Most of the turf where we organize in is African American, with a growing Latino presence in Chicago’s Little Village and the suburbs.

And where did I get the hint to look for the Obama ACORN connection?

From this Glenn Beck video.

And what made me look into that? A story about the genesis of the current situation by Glenn Beck where Glenn discusses the Cloward Piven strategy. And of course you have heard of the Cloward-Piven strategy from my pre-election post Barney Frank Frankly Not Frank which discusses how the mortgage crisis got started.

You can actually learn something useful about Cloward and Piven from the wiki.

The Cloward-Piven strategy refers to a political strategy outlined by Richard Cloward and Frances Fox Piven, then both sociologists and political activists at the Columbia University School of Social Work, in a 1966 article in The Nation. The two argued that many Americans who were eligible for welfare were not receiving benefits, and that a welfare enrollment drive would create a political crisis that would force U.S. politicians, particularly the Democratic Party, to enact legislation "establishing a guaranteed national income."

Cloward and Piven’s article is focused on forcing the Democratic Party, which in 1966 controlled the presidency and both houses of Congress, to take federal action to help the poor. They argued that full enrollment of those eligible for welfare “would produce bureaucratic disruption in welfare agencies and fiscal disruption in local and state governments” that would “deepen existing divisions among elements in the big-city Democratic coalition....

OK. How about some more of the picture?

First proposed in 1966 and named after Columbia University sociologists Richard Andrew Cloward and Frances Fox Piven, the "Cloward-Piven Strategy" seeks to hasten the fall of capitalism by overloading the government bureaucracy with a flood of impossible demands, thus pushing society into crisis and economic collapse.

Inspired by the August 1965 riots in the black district of Watts in Los Angeles (which erupted after police had used batons to subdue a black man suspected of drunk driving), Cloward and Piven published an article titled "The Weight of the Poor: A Strategy to End Poverty" in the May 2, 1966 issue of The Nation. Following its publication, The Nation sold an unprecedented 30,000 reprints. Activists were abuzz over the so-called "crisis strategy" or "Cloward-Piven Strategy," as it came to be called. Many were eager to put it into effect.

In their 1966 article, Cloward and Piven charged that the ruling classes used welfare to weaken the poor; that by providing a social safety net, the rich doused the fires of rebellion. Poor people can advance only when "the rest of society is afraid of them," Cloward told The New York Times on September 27, 1970. Rather than placating the poor with government hand-outs, wrote Cloward and Piven, activists should work to sabotage and destroy the welfare system; the collapse of the welfare state would ignite a political and financial crisis that would rock the nation; poor people would rise in revolt; only then would "the rest of society" accept their demands.

Now who was it that said "never let a serious crisis go to waste"? Rahm Emanuel, Obama's Chief of Staff. And what does a Chief of Staff do? Well he helps to fill staff positions wih the appropriate people. People like Communist Van Jones, Obama's former Green Jobs Czar. Or how about radical John Holdren, Obama's Science Czar.

You know it looks like these folks have a plan for America. And I don't think I like the plan.

And to think it all started to come apart with an attempt to start a child prostitution ring that was aided by ACORN.

Members of a community organisation closely linked to US president Barack Obama have been secretly filmed advising a fake pimp and his prostitute on how to evade authorities.

The video is seen as a serious setback for Obama, who has previously worked for Acorn, America's largest community organisation representing minorities and the poor.

Acorn was also a major supporter of Obama's campaign to become president, even though it is a non-profit non-partisan government organisation that receives over $70 million in taxpayer money.

Conservative activist James O'Keefe, along with a bogus prostitute, filmed Acorn workers advising on tax advantages for underage prostitutes.

In the video, an Acorn worker is heard telling O'Keefe that "under sixteen, yeah, so you'll be eligible for a child tax credit".

The worker also tells O'Keefe on how not to get caught by police.

If you haven't seen the videos you can watch them here:

Acorn Videos. And more is to come says Andrew Breitbart at Hot Air.

Cross Posted at Classical Values

A Better Fake

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
The Audacity of Hos
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Healthcare Protests

If you haven't been following the ACORN scandal you can get up to speed here.

H/T Instapundit

ACORN Is Looking For A Few Good Gynecologists - Or Is Bill Gates In Favor Of Child Prostitution?

By now you are familiar with the ACORN Child Prostitution ring scandal. If not watch this video. Or you could watch this video. Among others.

Well ACORN is embarrassed and plans to investigate what went wrong and who is to blame.

ACORN, calling the actions of some of its employees “indefensible,” has suspended advising new clients as part of its service programs and is setting up an independent review to see what happened.

ACORN chief executive Bertha Lewis said in a written statement that she was “ordering a halt to any new intakes into ACORN’s service programs until completion of an independent review.”

Is the investigation going to be on the up and up? What do you think?

One way to tell is to see how they intend to do the investigation.

In addition, she said, "ACORN's independent Advisory Council will help select an independent auditor/reviewer no later than September 18th to review all of the systems and processes called into question by the videos."

In early 2009, ACORN set up an independent Advisory Council to help put together a new management team under Lewis. Lewis was appointed to the job in the fall of 2008 after disclosure of a set of improper management decisions by the founder of the organization.

The Advisory Council includes John Podesta, president of the liberal Center for American Progress; Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, a former lieutenant governor of Maryland; Andrew Stern, international president of Service Employees International Union; Henry Cisneros, a former Secretary of Housing and Urban Development; John Banks, vice president of Government Relations Con Ed; and Eric Eve, senior vice president of Global Consumer Group, Community Relations, of Citigroup.

John Podesta? President of a liberal Center? Yeah. He is going to go after them with tooth and nail.

Kathleen Kennedy Townsend? A member of the Kennedy clan. Is she going to make the Democrats look bad by bringing down the hammer on ACORN? Sure. Why wouldn't she do the right thing?

Andy Stern whose SEIU is tied at the hip with ACORN? I'm sure he will show considerable independent judgment. NPR (yeah that NPR) has the story:

ACORN's biggest union backer, the Service Employees International Union, gave more than $4 million to the community organization and its affiliates from 2006-07, according to Dept. of Labor filings. One SEIU local union, the Illinois Homecare Workers and Home Childcare Providers, sprouted from ACORN's organizing efforts and pays rent to ACORN.

ACORN's affiliates also pick up money from the Change to Win labor federation, the Food and Commercial Workers Union and the United Federation of Teachers, among others.

Henry Cisneros of HUD? Yeah right.

...the Department of Housing and Urban Development gave ACORN Housing Corp. $8.2 million from 2003 to 2006, according to USAspending.gov. ACORN Housing provides counseling, classes, and access to special loans to low-income homebuyers. HUD has given another $1.6 million to other ACORN affiliates since 2003.

Henry would have absolutely no reason to sweep anything under the rug. None at all.

John Banks of Com Ed? I got nothing on him. Yet.

Eric Eve of Citi Group? Citi got $45 billion in TARP funds. Are they going to do any thing to unduly embarrass the government and threaten their gravy train? Nope. This particular abortion will get buried as expeditiously as possible with a minimum of fuss.

How about some other connections.

...Project Vote -- the voter mobilization organization that works closely with and draws its leadership from ACORN -- paid ACORN and an affiliate $5.4 million in 2006. But where does Project Vote get its money? Normally it's hard to tell, but we obtained a 2006 tax return showing the nonprofit's funders, including: $4.5 million from the charitable trust of the investment management firm Vanguard; $425,000 from the Bauman Family Foundation, which also gives to the People for the American Way; and $396,000 from the liberal phone company Working Assets.

How about that Project Vote? Well I have some dirt on them. Mr. Obama did some legal work for them.

How about foundations supporting ACORN?

The foundations that give to ACORN & Co. vary widely. There are some classically liberal ones: The Bauman Family Foundation gave $350,000 to ACORN's American Institute for Social Justice. George Soros' Open Society Institute gave $300,000 to that institute and $250,000 to ACORN proper. The Charles Stewart Mott Foundation gave the institute $1.8 million.

But some of the biggest donors are mainstream foundations of big corporations, according to data from the Foundation Center. The JPMorgan Chase Foundation gave $2.4 million to ACORN Housing and the Bank of America Charitable Foundation gave $1.4 million. Citigroup's foundation gave $1.5 million to the social justice institute.

Other major donors include the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which gave $1.4 million for an education reform campaign. The Ford Foundation has given $1.3 million, including $257,000 this year for "public education and technical assistance to grassroots groups working to expand access to the Earned Income Tax Credit, living wage ordinances and paid sick days." Foundations affiliated with the late founder of the United Parcel Service gave a combined $6.4 million.

Just what kind of education do Bill and Melinda support for Salvadoran child prostitutes? Something better than what the ACORN folks had in mind I hope.

How about individuals?

The 527 organization Fund for America was set up last year by top liberal donors and operatives to help fund pro-Democratic organizations this election season, but it ended up folding. The Fund, itself bankrolled by George Soros and others, gave $200,000 to ACORN.

ACORN has also had its own affiliated 527s. Communities Voting Together, for example, was founded to "educate and mobilize low income voters in key communities in key battleground states in the run-up to the 2004 presidential elections, focusing on Latino and African-American neighborhoods." The group received $125,000 from film producer Jeanne Levy-Hinte; $100,000 from environmentalist donor John R. Hunting, whose wealth comes from the Steelcase office furniture company; $80,000 from the president of Working Assets, and $70,000 from Linda Pritzker of the Hyatt fortune.

There's a lot more to ACORN's financial picture that we can't complete here. ACORN's network is complex, and money often transfers from one affiliate to another, making it hard for outsiders to keep track of it all. But one thing is for sure: ACORN is busy.

For sure they have been busy. Doing one of the biggest money laundering schemes in America.

Linda Pritzker has quite a family. Take her Cousin Penny.

...lets start with a well known Chicago name Penny Pritzker. It starts with a bank failure.

Unfortunately, this wasn’t the case for the 1,406 people who lost much of their life savings when Superior Bank of Chicago went belly up in 2001 with over $1 billion in insured and uninsured deposits. This collapse came amid harsh criticism of how Superior’s owners promoted sub-prime home mortgages. As part of a settlement, the owners paid $100 million and agreed to pay another $335 million over 15 years at no interest.

The uninsured depositors were dealt another blow recently when the U.S. Supreme Court let stand a lower court decision to put any recovered money toward the debt that the bank owners owe the federal government before the depositors get anything.

But this seven-year-old bank failure has relevance in another way today, since the chair of Superior’s board for five years was Penny Pritzker, a member of one of America’s richest families and the current Finance Chair for the presidential campaign of Barack Obama, the same candidate who has lashed out against predatory lending.

How charming. A family that looks out for the little people.

Well there you have it. The team of gynecologists in charge of doing the internal investigation of ACORN. And some of their connections.

In my opinion this will not be over until ACORN, SEIU, Project Vote, and every one connected with them goes down. If you find out stuff about them I can use send it to me. Or blog it yourself. And don't forget to save every incriminating page in your own computer. Just in case they try to disappear the evidence.

Happy hunting.

H/T Instapundit along with many other links.

Cross Posted at Classical Values

Acorn Encourages Child Prostitution And Tax Cheating

This has been making the rounds. I thought it might be good to have those who missed it see it. Also watch Part 2.

This is so utterly depraved that it beggars belief. Now don't get me wrong. I'm not a fan of prostitution (loveless sex doesn't interest me), but if adults want to engage in that sort of thing it is their business. But importing children for sex slavery is so beyond the pale I can hardly imagine what was going through the minds of the descendants of slaves giving advice on how to pull off this depravity with government money.

And we are getting the usual "isolated incident" crap from the usual suspects. And then this video surfaces. So what I want to know is when is ACORN going to be RICOed? Judging by the Black Panther case just dismissed by Obama's Justice Department, not any time soon.

Just so you know, ACORN is slated to get billions in stimulus money. I do not believe that abetting child prostitution was ever the kind of stimulus most Americans had in mind.

It seems Mr. Obama has had an ongoing relationship with ACORN.

While Barack Obama's connection with the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) has not gone entirely unreported, it has not been fully explained. Most media background pieces simply note Obama's involvement in a 1995 lawsuit on behalf of ACORN. Obama's own website, as well as most major media, fail to reveal the full depth and extent of his relationship with the organization.

Attempts to hide evidence of Obama's involvement with ACORN have included wiping the web clean of potentially damaging articles that had appeared, and were previously publicly accessible. Unfortunately, those behind the attempted cover-up failed to realize that in today's day and age, nothing disappears forever. There also exists another layer of the web, the hidden web, which is full of information included in proprietary scholarly databases where these very same "missing" articles can be easily uncovered.

Obama's campaign website states:

Fact: Barack was never an ACORN trainer and never worked for ACORN in any other capacity.

Is that really a FACT, or just another lie? Let's take a look at a quote from a 2004 article - Case Study: Chicago- The Barack Obama Campaign - written by Toni Foulkes, a Chicago ACORN Leader, which was published in the journal Social Policy. Did we mention that Social Policy recently pulled this particular article from their website, while leaving links to all other articles up?

"Obama took the case, known as ACORN vs. Edgar (the name of the Republican governor at the time) and we won. Obama then went on to run a voter registration project with Project VOTE in 1992 that made it possible for Carol Moseley Braun to win the Senate that year. Project VOTE delivered 50,000 newly registered voters in that campaign (ACORN delivered about 5,000 of them).

Since then, we have invited Obama to our leadership training sessions to run the session on power every year, and, as a result, many of our newly developing leaders got to know him before he ever ran for office. Thus it was natural for many of us to be active volunteers in his first campaign for State Senate and then his failed bid for U.S. Congress in 1996. By the time he ran for U.S. Senate, we were old friends."

So Obama is an "old friend" of ACORN? What a surprise.

What is that I hear? A bus revving up? It looks like ACORN may be about to get thrown under the bus. Along with the Rev. Wright and Mr. Obama's very own granny. Evidently the bus has already started to roll.

Conservatives have cheered the Census Bureau's decision to sever ties with ACORN because it had lost confidence in the group, but the hidden-camera videos that prompted ACORN to fire four workers this week could raise more questions about the federal funding ACORN receives for housing outreach.

ACORN Housing Corporation received $1.6 million to provide housing services to low-income communities in this fiscal year, ending Sept. 30, according to USASpending.gov, a federal government Web site for tracking government grants.

The Department of Housing and Urban Development Grants has given $8.2 million to ACORN in the years between 2003 and 2006, as well as $1.6million to ACORN affiliates.

Talk about a culture of corruption. However, the destruction of ACORN will not be sufficient if another organization rises up to take its place. Or if only a few token bad apples take the fall. The whole rotten structure must be brought down. And that is going to require at minimum a new Congress and probably a new president. We have to keep the heat on these low lifes. My advice:

The price of Liberty is Eternal Vigilance.

And I'm not the first to say that. Not by a long shot. The recent March Against Washington is a step in the right direction.

Cross Posted at Classical Values

An Excess Of Voters

It seems that six counties in Alabama have more people registered to vote than they have adult citizens.

MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) — Six Alabama counties have more people registered to vote than adults of voting age.

The Birmingham News compared the state's voter registration numbers with the Census Bureau's population estimates and found more registered voters than voting-age adults in Conecuh, Greene, Lowndes, Perry, Washington and Wilcox counties.

Statewide, the voter registration rolls equal 85% of Alabama's voting age population.

The News reported that the biggest variations were in Greene and Perry counties.

Greene County had 7,540 people on its voter rolls at the end of September, but the Census Bureau estimates its adult population at 6,834.

And why could this be a problem?

After Alabama's party primaries in June, Perry County District Attorney Michael Jackson asked the FBI to investigate an unusually high voter turnout and complaints about absentee voting in the west Alabama county. The FBI has not announced any results.

Secretary of State Beth Chapman says her staff is reviewing the numbers because bloated voter rolls can provide an opportunity for election fraud.

So far there are no reports of ACORN or Obama Campaign involvement.

Actually I think Obama is just trying to assist the move to a service economy. Suppose you need voter fraud nationwide to win an an election? Now you can just contract it out to one entity instead of having to make deals with every mob in every city. Economies of scale all around and you get to exploit idealistic college kids for minimum wage. With any kind of luck a good number of those kids will get felony vote fraud convictions and then there will be only one place they can get a job. With Obama's boys or those like them. So the system to a certain extent is self replicating. Especially if it wins elections.

H/T Ace of Spades HQ

Ohio Voter Registers Multiple Times - For My Country

The lady being interviewed said, "I'll register over and over if it helps my uh you know. Plus I'm trying to do something for myself and my country." I was unaware that vote fraud would help the country.

Rumors Abound

A post yesterday on pro-Hillary HillBuzz claims that a contributer spoke with someone in the Chicago court system that a team of FBI investigators in ten states are putting together a RICO case for U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald. They are claiming that alleged undocumented contributions to the Obama campaign could potentially ensnare ACORN and, well, just about every Democrat they don't like.

Another rumor: Two Big Stories About ACORN Fraud in Ohio About to Hit.

10,000 duplicate/fraudulent registrations in Hamilton County (Cincinnati) and around 8000 bad registrations in Cuyahoga County (Cleveland). Cincinnati story should be out tomorrow, Cleveland one Sunday or Monday.

And yes the spirit of enterprise is alive and well in Ohio.

CLEVELAND - A man at the center of a voter-registration scandal told The Post yesterday he was given cash and cigarettes by aggressive ACORN activists in exchange for registering an astonishing 72 times, in apparent violation of Ohio laws.

"Sometimes, they come up and bribe me with a cigarette, or they'll give me a dollar to sign up," said Freddie Johnson, 19, who filled out 72 separate voter-registration cards over an 18-month period at the behest of the left-leaning Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now.

"The ACORN people are everywhere, looking to sign people up. I tell them I am already registered. The girl said, 'You are?' I say, 'Yup,' and then they say, 'Can you just sign up again?' " he said.

H/T Hot Air via No Quarter which has lots of links.

I have some links too:

Dark Ambition
Lawyers Without Licenses
Stealing The ACORNs
Barack Has Some Friends

Cross Posted at Classical Values

Stealing The ACORNS

That is correct. There are people who hate the poor so much that they are stealing from the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now. Yep. Stealing from ACORN.

ACORN, the venerable 38-year-old social justice organization, faces the fight of its life over an embezzlement scandal and leadership crisis that hits Orleans Parish Civil District Court today at 9 a.m.

In late May, the group's board was shocked to learn that the brother of ACORN founder Wade Rathke had stolen nearly $1 million from the organization and its affiliates eight years ago.

"It was like a bomb. Things just went bonkers," said Bertha Lewis, director of the group's New York office, who has taken over Rathke's duties on an interim basis. "Nothing like that had ever happened before."

The news has attracted national scrutiny of ACORN, which was founded in Arkansas in 1970 and maintains a strong political presence in New York, New Orleans and Washington. In fact, early versions of the Wall Street bailout under consideration by Congress called for the routing of some profits from the sale of troubled assets to activist groups like ACORN. That provision emerged as an early sticking point in the plan's passage, in part because of the current scandal.

Yes it has. People are looking into ACORN. Fortunately the community organizer, Mr Obama, had nothing to do with ACORN. Besides using their campaign services. So we know ACORN worked for Obama. Did Mr. Obama ever work for ACORN? Of course not. Why would he do something like that?

In his capacity as an attorney, Barack represented ACORN in a successful lawsuit alongside the U.S. Department of Justice against the state of Illinois to force state compliance with a federal voting access law. For his work helping enforce the law, called “Motor Voter,” Barack received the IVI-IPO Legal Eagle Award in 1995…

OK. So maybe that is all. Nope. The Obama Campaign says he never organized with ACORN. So what gives? Well he did work with Project Vote. And guess what? Project Vote and ACORN share an office in Washington, DC. And they share job advertising. And ACORN has been the top independent contractor for Project Vote for a number of years. All this stuff with different names for the same business makes it seem like they were trying to cover something up.

I mean Mr. Obama is a proud Community Organizer. Why isn't he proud of working with a proud community organization like ACORN? Could it be their involvement and prosecution for vote fraud?

However, I think it best if we heard it straight from the horse's (what did you think I was going to say?) mouth. Mr Obama speaks about helping out voters.

I’ve been fighting alongside ACORN on issues you care about my entire career. Even before I was an elected official, when I ran Project Vote voter registration drive in Illinois, ACORN was smack dab in the middle of it, and we appreciate your work. — Barack Obama, Speech to ACORN, November 2007

So I guess that shoots down plausible deniability. I think he is going to have to work harder to keep his different stories straight.

So I started out with a guy stealing ACORNs and end up with ACORN stealing votes. You have to ask yourself a fundamental question: is there no honor among thieves?

Obama Tied To Acorn

What a community organizer does. Or in the words of Stanley Kurtz: A community organizer helps get high risk loans for low credit customers. What ACORN does. What is ACORN then? An organization full of community organizers committed to mortgage fraud and vote fraud. Some real nice friends that Obama has.

Cross Posted at Classical Values

With Friends Like These

It looks like the community dis organizers need some help. From Mr. Obama.

WHAT exactly does a "community organizer" do? Barack Obama's rise has left many Americans asking themselves that question. Here's a big part of the answer: Community organizers intimidate banks into making high-risk loans to customers with poor credit.

In the name of fairness to minorities, community organizers occupy private offices, chant inside bank lobbies, and confront executives at their homes - and thereby force financial institutions to direct hundreds of millions of dollars in mortgages to low-credit customers.

In other words, community organizers help to undermine the US economy by pushing the banking system into a sinkhole of bad loans. And Obama has spent years training and funding the organizers who do it.

THE seeds of today's financial meltdown lie in the Commu nity Reinvestment Act - a law passed in 1977 and made riskier by unwise amendments and regulatory rulings in later decades.

CRA was meant to encourage banks to make loans to high-risk borrowers, often minorities living in unstable neighborhoods. That has provided an opening to radical groups like ACORN (the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now) to abuse the law by forcing banks to make hundreds of millions of dollars in "subprime" loans to often uncreditworthy poor and minority customers.

I have covered this at length but it you missed it try ACORN Is Not About Nuts and The Best Congress Fannie Could Buy and Barney Frank Frankly Not Frank.

What is going on in my opinion is nothing short of a coup attempt. The American Thinker explains who planned it and how they plan to pull it off. Obviously these events are way beyond my control. The only chance we have is on November 4th. If Obama gets in with a Democrat Congress you can kiss the Republic goodbye.

Let me add that Eric has a very nice chart from the American Thinker article that gives the basics in a very quick look.

Cross Posted at Classical Values

Leave The Money - Get The Votes

It looks like Sarah Palin has more value as a vote getter than as a fund raiser.

John McCain’s campaign is scrapping, rescheduling or offering surrogates for nearly every one of the fundraisers Sarah Palin was to hold this month, instead having her campaign jointly with McCain, prepare for her sole debate next month and get some foreign policy exposure.

According to an internal fundraising calendar put together in late-August just before McCain’s vice presidential selection, Palin was to have headlined nine fundraisers across five states by now.

She’s attended just one to date.

And she’ll miss several more that had been in the works for this week, having reunited with McCain to stump in suburban Philadelphia Monday before heading to New York City for two days of meetings with foreign leaders in town for the United Nations General Assembly.

“It only makes sense that we would maximize her time and make sure the schedule lets her spend time meeting with voters, mobilizing volunteers and communicating her record,” said an aide to Palin, requesting anonymity to discuss strategic matters.

It seems like that is a very good idea. According to the polls at Real Clear Politics Obama has been gaining ground. And that does not even include ACORN vote fraud.

Cross Posted at Classical Values