ACORN Can Still Be Paid
Nov 29, 2009 Political
Congress voted to stop paying taxpayer money to the liberal support group ACORN. This took place after damning videos were released which showed members of that corrupt organization showing a pimp and prostitute how to avoid the law, how to avoid taxes, and how to bring underage girls into the country to use for prostitution.
Attorney General Eric Holder has weighed in on the matter and has ruled that ACORN may still be paid under terms of contracts that existed prior to the Congressional ban.
If Congress voted to cut funding why is it OK to continue to pay them? Are we to believe that the contracts were made with the non-corrupt branch of this organization?
Seems to me that if a defense contractor was found to be breaking the law and Congress voted to cut funding then contracts would not be paid.
It looks like Obama’s AG figured a way to continue paying the corrupt organization our hard earned money. ACORN is a partisan group that supports Democrats and only Democrats. The government gives them our money to do just that.
Big Government has been on this story and has clearly demonstrated that ACORN is a wing of the Democrat party. Documents that ACORN threw away in order to destroy evidence shows that they work to get Democrats elected. It is time to stop giving them any taxpayer money.
And it is time for the Executive Branch to stop usurping the authority of Congress.
Related:
Big Government
Big Government
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ACORN Dirt Keeps Piling Up
Nov 25, 2009 Political
Looks like the ACORN office in San Diego (that demonstrated fraud like this) is not the only one that has been breaking the law by dumping thousands of papers containing personal information. ACORN beat feet out of an office in Oklahoma last year so it could avoid paying the back rent it owed (no wonder they help people get loans they can’t even hope to pay back) and the group left behind a lot of paperwork and a computer. The paperwork included the group’s plan for putting the right politicians in office. The document posted at Big Government leaves no doubt that ACORN is a liberal organization dedicated to assisting the Democratic party. It is interesting the way they describe neighborhoods with Anglos in them (as if that is a bad thing).
Looks like ACORN is in violation of the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act which governs how personal information is handled by certain institutions (of which ACORN is one). The documents dumped include credit reports (like the one found here), social security numbers, driver’s license numbers, addresses, dates of birth and all kinds of information that would be very useful to someone interested in stealing an identity.
The fine for failing to safeguard this information is $100,000 per incident. Since there are tens of thousands of papers containing tens and thousands of breaches of personal information, ACORN should be bankrupt and out of business when they get done with the fines.
I am amazed at the number of people who continue to defend this organization. It is rotten to the core and just when you think you have seen it all a new item pops up to expose them even more.
This group is a bunch of community organizing thugs who break or skirt the law in order to advance a political agenda just like their former mentor, Barack Obama or B-HO, as it were.
Each day Breitbart releases another item that exposes the corruption of ACORN.
He has promised that if the Attorney General does not launch a serious investigation then a lot of stuff will be released before the 2010 election.
That’s one way to take down the Democrats. Take down their community organizing firm.
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Good Luck With That, ACORN
Nov 13, 2009 Political
Seems like the community criminal organizing group known as ACORN has filed suit against the US Government for voting to cut off its funds after employees of the group were video taped encouraging people to commit criminal acts. The last video demonstrated that the powers that be in ACORN lied about the encounter in one of its offices.
The Community Organizer in Chief distanced himself from the people he used to work with and members of Congress voted to cut off TAXPAYER money that was being sent to the ACORN crime family.
ACORN is suing basing the claim that it is unconstitutional for Congress to cut its funding.
That qualifies the legislation as bills of attainder, according to the Center for Constitutional Rights, which filed the suit on behalf of ACORN. A bill of attainder punishes a person or group without the benefit of a trial, and is illegal under Article 1 of the Constitution.
Bills of attainder have traditionally been understood to have more serious legal consequences — including the seizure of private property and even capital punishment — than Congress’ decision to withhold funds that are at its discretion to disseminate. Though members of Congress have accused ACORN of corruption, it is not clear how the exercise of its own prerogative is outside the bounds of legislative power. Fox News
Maybe I have this wrong but I have never seen in the Constitution where TAXPAYER money is allowed to go to a group like this in the first place. Be that as it may, what makes the people of ACORN think that TAXPAYERS are supposed to fork over money to them when they are continually involved in crime?
This group is a partisan organization that works to get Democrats elected. Why should any Republican have to pay tax dollars to support something like this? Why would any self respecting Democrat (I know, if they were self respecting they would be Republicans but stick with me on this) want TAXPAYER money spent on this kind of stuff?
Suppose there was a group that said it was a community organizing group and it took tons of TAXPAYER money to do “good” things. Then suppose it registered people but threw out all the cards where people registered as Democrats. Suppose the group pushed the agendas of Republicans and suppose members were caught giving advice to people on how to engage in prostitution using illegal alien minors or how to evade taxes?
Don’t ya think people like those at ACORN would be up in arms about it?
I guess since ACORN happens to be a liberal organization that uses TAXPAYER money to advance liberal causes it figures it is OK to bilk the TAXPAYER.
Congress is well within its right to cut off the funding at any time and for any reason.
If ACORN does not like that then perhaps they should all go out and get real jobs.
I understand that the new government run health care system will need people experienced in committing fraud…
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Tags: acorn, Congress, Democrats, health care, law suit, Republicans
ACORN And CRA Flow DownHill (Plumbers Know This)
Oct 6, 2009 Political
Progressives, despite their deceptive name, want to look backwards, which is why, when you have a real question about one of their half- baked and failing policies, they love to point out former President Bush ( don’t they know he hasn’t been around for eight months?). So I guess it is in keeping with their character to go back to the past for ideas that didn’t work then, and rework them into ideas that won’t work now.
At least, in this aspect, they are consistent.
As we try to shake off the financial crisis, here’s a bright idea. Take a law that has led to the writing of an enormous amount of bad mortgages and expand it. Then take enforcement away from bank examiners and give it to housing activists.
Sound like a poisonous cocktail? Well, it is what the Obama administration and Democrats are currently stirring up onCapitol Hill.
The White House and Congress want to expand a 30-year-old law–the Community Reinvestment Act–that helped to fuel the mortgage meltdown. What the CRA does, in effect, is compel banks to seek the permission of community activists to get regulatory approval for bank expansions and mergers. Often this means striking a deal with activist groups such as ACORN or unions like the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and agreeing to allocate credit to poor and minority areas that are underserved.
In short, the CRA encourages banks to make loans they would not ordinarily make. What’s more, these agreements often require that banks offer no-money-down mortgages and remove caps on how much debt a borrower can take on. All of this is done in the name of “financial democracy.”
Liberals pooh-pooh the idea that a 30-year-old law could have contributed to the current subprime crisis and credit crunch. But what they ignore is the massive expansion of CRA-commitments forced on banks in the run-up to the 2008 financial crisis.
forbes.com
This is stupidity on a truly mind boggling scale. These are the people you want to represent you?
According to the National Community Reinvestment Coalition, in the first 20 years of the act, up to 1997, commitments totaled approximately $200 billion. But from 1997 to 2007, commitments exploded to more than $4.2 trillion. (Keep in mind this is more than four times the size of the current health bill being debated in Congress.) The burdens on individual banks can be enormous. Washington Mutual, for example, pledged $1 trillion in mortgages to those with credit histories that “fall outside typical credit, income or debt constraints,” and was awarded the 2003 CRA Community Impact Award for its Community Access program. Four years later it was taken over by the Office of Thrift Supervision.
forbes.com
And some liberals still maintain that the CRA had nothing to do with the mortgage meltdown. Yeah, right- only if you hold your hands over your ears and yell, “La, La, La-” at the top of your lungs.
And then to compound the situation, ACORN, the “community organizing” group that used the CRA to crowbar favorable mortgages from reluctant banks, thus contributing to the mortgage meltdown find themselves under investigation. They were largely untouched by the myriad scandals because they had patronage in Congress, and indeed the WH. Now they have found that there are limits to what even they can get away with.
Let the investigations begin, and spare no one- scorched earth policy should apply here.
Louisiana’s attorney general has broadened the scope of an investigation of ACORN to include a possible embezzlement of $5 million a decade ago within the community organization, five times more than previously reported.
ACORN Chief Executive Officer Bertha Lewis said the new reported amount is “completely false.”
Attorney General Buddy Caldwell has been conducting an investigation of ACORN since June. He issued subpoenas in August seeking documents related to former ACORN International President Wade Rathke and his brother Dale Rathke, who kept the group’s books. Those subpoenas were focused on possible ACORN violations for non-payment of employee withholding taxes, obstructing justice and violating the Employee Retirement Security Act. No charges have been made.
The attorney general had inquired in June into an alleged embezzlement within ACORN that happened 10 years ago. The group last year dealt with an internal dispute and a lawsuit involving accusations that Dale Rathke made nearly $1 million in improper credit card charges in 1999 and 2000. The brother and a donor repaid the money.
nola.com/politics
Yes, New Orleans would be a great place to begin- after all, it is the home base of ACORN, and her sister agency (although you might think there could be the teeniest bit of “conflict of interest”) SEIU, the union that is as close to Nobama as the warts on his backside. This could get real ugly, because there are so many pols in Washington who are tangled in ACORN’S web, and a true and thorough investigation will flush them out like the roaches they are.
Caldwell said last month that the statute of limitations presented obstacles to prosecutors taking action on the embezzlement, and that his investigation was not focused on that issue. Thesubpoena issued Monday changed the tone of the investigation and put a new emphasis on the embezzlement issue.
“Current high-ranking members of ACORN have publicly acknowledged that embezzlement did in fact occur, but the exact amount of the embezzlement was unknown until it was recently acknowledged in a board of directors meeting on Oct. 17, 2008, by Bertha Lewis and Liz Wolf that an internal review had determined that the amount embezzled was $5 million, ” the new subpoena says.
The subpoena says, “It is still unclear if some of the monies embezzled are from state, federal or private funds.”
The subpoena requests documents from Citizens Consulting Inc., a financial arm of ACORN, and from various accounting and legal consultants in New Orleans. Investigators are trying to verify the issues raised in the subpoena.
“We’re going to follow the evidence where it leads us and try to do the right thing,” said David Caldwell, head of the attorney general’s public corruption and special prosecutions divisions. “We are actively investigating the case, whatever the outcome might be. This is something we are devoting our full attention to.”
Wade Rathke, who was in Bangkok, Thailand, on Monday, referred questions to ACORN officials. Lewis said she would comment further after she and ACORN attorneys had a chance to review the subpoena.
nola.com/politics
It’s convenient that Wade Rathke is in Thailand- taking a vacation in the land of underage prostitution? We may never know, but he is beyond reach of a subpoena at the moment. We need to grab Dale, his brother, and squeeze him dry in front of a Grand Jury- but would he lie? I think he would- which leads us back to Deep Throat’s famous words- “Follow the money.”
That may well be our best course- because the money trail will tell us the truth.
The other players, probably not so much.
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Tags: acorn, corruption, CRA, embezzlement, mortgage meltdown, SEIU
Its’ Not Just ACORN That Is The Problem
Sep 28, 2009 Political
ACORN, the Association that has given “community organizing” a bad name, has come under increasing criticism and even investigations. Good, but not enough- not nearly enough, as this organization has, through the years, morphed into many entities; SEIU, the Services Employees International Union, the Tides Foundation (a Soros- based liberal organization), and the Apollo Alliance, a group that helped the Resident actually write the healthcare and stimulus bills- think there might be a wee touch of conflict of interest, given the SEIU is organizing the nursing profession and other service aspects that stand to receive scads of money if all this passes.
All of these “organizations” need to be investigated- that much is plain- what isn’t , is whether these actually will be.
As various charges and complaints have materialized over the years, it seems that ACORN uses the communities in which they are located as staging grounds for national power grabs. With multiple states and entities receiving federal funds, ACORN plays to win. Aiding ACORN are groups like DEMO’s, the Democracy Alliance, Soros Open Society Institute, and the Service Employees International Union (SEIU). The Washington Examiner has covered ACORN’s: “Muscle for the Money” program:
“ACORN’s so-called ‘muscle for money’ strategy extorts ‘donations’ from targeted government and corporate officials by offering them Mafia-like protection from protests by the group’s own paid thugs, many of them convicted felons. ACORN has also blocked bank mergers until the targeted financial institutions agreed to change their lending policies to ACORN’s satisfaction.”
biggovernment.com
“Mafia- like” protection- oh goody- that sounds, well- illegal, doesn’t it? At the very least, unethical, but when has unethical ever stopped a liberal before (see: Bill Clinton)?
This has been going on for a long time, beginning with the CRA (Community Reinvestment Act) of Jimmy Carter’s term, which had the lofty goal of allegedly helping the less advantaged to progress in society, but ACORN and the others all do one thing in common- they use the politics of confrontation and passive extortion to achieve their ends.
As various charges and complaints have materialized over the years, it seems that ACORN uses the communities in which they are located as staging grounds for national power grabs. With multiple states and entities receiving federal funds, ACORN plays to win. Aiding ACORN are groups like DEMO’s, the Democracy Alliance, Soros Open Society Institute, and the Service Employees International Union (SEIU). The Washington Examiner has covered ACORN’s: “Muscle for the Money” program:
ACORN’s so-called ‘muscle for money’ strategy extorts ‘donations’ from targeted government and corporate officials by offering them Mafia-like protection from protests by the group’s own paid thugs, many of them convicted felons. ACORN has also blocked bank mergers until the targeted financial institutions agreed to change their lending policies to ACORN’s satisfaction.”
While it is easy to see the benefit for ACORN to go after Sherwin Williams or Jackson Hewitt, it was their 2007-2008 ventures with SEIU against the Carlyle Group that deserve a closer inspection. In 2007 SEIU began a series of “grassroots” actions designed to pressure the Carlyle Group to the bargaining table.
“The Service Employees International Union (SEIU) staged a protest outside the Pennsylvania Avenue headquarters of The Carlyle Group as part of the union’s bid to organize Manor Care, the Toledo-based nursing home giant Carlyle is buying for $6.3 billion.”
biggovernment.com
It is all about the pressure, and everybody wants to be Tony Soprano, I guess, but in reality, there are lines you do not cross and ethics you cannot ignore without a penalty, and just because the Resident might be an ardent supporter does not mean that he will support you if you begin to embarrass him, and that is what is happening now.
The videos that incriminate ACORN, and show them actively attempting to evade IRS tax laws, and set up, or aid in setting up an alleged house of prostitution, have caused this group and any others associated with ACORN to finally feel some heat.
Good- it’s about time- this group, as well as the others mentioned above, are a boil on the butt of our nation, and it is time to lance it and get rid of this infection.
This kind of help our Republic absolutely does not need.
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