ACORN Defender Eric Alterman of George Soros’s Center for American Progress(ivism) Thinks You’re Stupid

==========================

June 11, 2011

By Matthew Vadum

One of the left’s most consistently overrated writers, the insufferably elitist propagandist Eric Alterman, is perpetuating the myth that ACORN is dead.

As I have proven in my book, Subversion Inc.: How Obama’s ACORN Red Shirts are Still Terrorizing and Ripping Off American Taxpayers, ACORN is still very much alive.

A longtime apologist for ACORN, Alterman writes

A quarter of Republicans questioned profess to believe that ACORN is definitely planning to steal the 2012 election while another 32 percent think it might be. These numbers are admittedly lower than the 52 percent who, in 2009, went on record accusing ACORN of having stolen the election for Obama. But this should strike a person with normal mental faculties as a mite surprising given that the organization no longer exists. [emphasis added]

In other words, Alterman is saying that if you believe the reports that

i) ACORN has incorporated its state chapters under new names including New England United for Justice, Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment, and Minnesota Neighborhoods Organizing for Change, with largely the same people working in the same old ACORN offices

(ii) ACORN vote manufacturing subsidiary Project Vote is conducting business as usual out of ACORN’s Washington, D.C. office near Capitol Hill

(iii) Project Vote ran a nationwide voter mobilization drive headed by senior ACORN executive Amy Busefink, now a felon convicted of voter fraud, in the 2010 election

iv) ACORN Housing is conducting business as usual after changing its name to Affordable Housing Centers of America

v) ACORN International (a.k.a. Community Organizations International) is now operating in Canada, Mexico, Peru, Kenya, Dominican Republic, and India, under the leadership of ACORN’s corrupt founder Wade Rathke then you are either a moron or crazy or both.

That’s what leftists like Eric Alterman think of you. If you stubbornly (or bitterly) cling to proven facts Alterman refuses to accept, you must be ridiculed and mocked. It’s the Alinsky way.

* * * *

America needs to know that ACORN is restructuring in time to help re-elect President Obama in 2012. Obama used to work for ACORN and represented the group in court as its lawyer. These radical leftists who use the brutal, in-your-face, Machiavellian pressure tactics of Saul Alinsky want to destroy America as we know it and will use any means to do it.

***Written by Matthew Vadum****

LINK

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ACORN hasn’t died; it is just morphing into different named entities but the Alinsky ideology/pathology is the same.

As the saying goes:  Beware of wolves in sheep’s clothing…….

**********************

Of Note in addition to above:

America’s Little Lenin? Joel Rogers and the Obama Movement

This is posted with permission and assistance from Trevor Loudon at

http://www.keywiki.org

AND

http://www.newzeal.blogspot.com

Obama File 102

America’s Little Lenin? Joel Rogers and the Obama Movement

Obama file 101 here

It is becoming increasingly clear that Barack Obama did not create a movement. A movement created Barack Obama.

The New Party which Rogers and Dan Cantor founded in the early 90s, was an attempt to to unite the poor, Blacks, Latinos , labor and “community groups” to work with and inside the Democratic Party to elect large numbers of leftist candidates to public office.

The party was essentially amalgam of four organizations -radical Washington DC “think tank” the Institute for Policy Studies(IPS), Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN).

The first strategic meetings to plan the New Party were held in Joel Rogers’ home in Madison Wisconsin in the very early 1990s. Present were Rogers’ wife Sarah Siskind, Dan Cantor (now leading the New party spin-off Working Families Party in New York) , ACORN leaders Wade Rathke ,Zach Polett , Steve Kest and Jon Kest and IPS linked activists Steve Cobble , Harriet Barlow and Sam Pizzigati .

The very first meeting included Gerry Hudson from DSA and SEIU and early ACORN leader and IPS affiliate Gary Delgado.Anthony Thigpenn, from Los Angeles was also approached, but though supportive, did not wish to play a leadership role.

Incidentally, both Delgagdo and Thigpenn were later supporters of Van Jones’ anti Iraq War magazine War Times.

The party was socialist in character, but only revealed its true nature to friends.

In March 28-30 1997 Democratic Socialists of America convened their annual Socialists Scholars Conference at Borough of Manhattan Community College, New York. Barack Obama, incidentally, attended some of these conferences in the early 1980s.

The 1997 conference was themed “Radical alternatives on the eve of the millenium”.

Invitees were asked to join the debate on “changes in the labor movement, Marxist theory, the state of the economy, market socialism, and other areas where theory and practice meet…listen to the United States’ only independent and socialist congressman, Rep. Bernie Sanders…”dialogue with Joel Rogers of the New Party… “

Barack Obama joined the New Party in Chicago, during his 1995 Illinois State Senate run. Obama was also a leader of the Chicago New Party sister organization , Progressive Chicago, as far back as 1993. Other Progressive Chicago leaders included Keith Kelleher of SEIU and ACORN, Kelleher’s wife, Madeline Talbott (ACORN) and Ron Sable, Danny K . Davis and Lou Pardo of DSA.

The New Party relied on “fusion” voting for its success. Candidates ran on both the Democrat and New Party lines, combing the vote totals from both. This practice was illegal in many states, so in 1997, Rogers and his wife Sarah Siskind took a case to the Supreme Court seeking to overturn the state bans.

According to the The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel December 5, 1996;

With allusions to possible electoral chaos, justices of the U.S. Supreme Court expressed skepticism Wednesday over an effort to overturn 40 state laws that forbid nominations of the same candidate by more than one political party.

The high court heard arguments in a case from Minnesota that was orchestrated by a Wisconsin couple Joel Rogers, a University of Wisconsin-Madison law professor, and his wife, Madison attorney Sarah E. Siskind.

Rogers is a co-founder and national chair of the New Party, which describes itself as progressive and claims 10,000 members nationwide. The party has elected candidates for local offices in Wisconsin and elsewhere.

The case failed and ‘”fusion” voting was ruled unconstitutional. Deprived of its main tactic, the New Party, went into sharp decline, surviving under the Working Families Party banner in New York and a few other states.

Coincidentally, Sarah Siskind worked for the the Madison Wisconsin office of Barack Obama’s Chicago law firm, Miner, Barnhill and Galland.

[snip]

In 2004, Joel Rogers from the Center On Wisconsin Strategy, and Robert Borosage from IPS enlisted DSA friendly Steelworkers President Leo Gerard and SEIU President Andy Stern, to propose a new alliance of labor, environmental groups, business and “social justice” leaders – the Apollo Alliance. The Alliance, which soon included over 200 supporting organizations, released a report “High Road or Low Road? Job Quality in the New Green Economy” arguing for a ten-year program of investment in a “clean energy, good jobs” economy.”

Joel Rogers was the Alliance’s founding chairman and continues to serve on its board. Borosage is also a board member, as is Leo Gerard. John Podesta from the Center for American Progress also serves, but took a break while co-chairing President Obama’s “transition”, where he

“coordinated the priorities of the incoming administration’s agenda, oversaw the development of its policies, and spearheaded its appointments of major cabinet secretaries and political appointees.”

Podesta also looked after another Apollo Alliance board member Van Jones, giving him a job with Center for American Progress , when Jones was forced to exit the White House.

Read More……….

LINK

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Do your HOMEWORK America!

Study the candidates, research their backgrounds and THINK.

ACORN’s “Texas for Obama” Labor Ally Could Prove Cover to Rebuild Discredited Organization

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From BigGovernment.com

by Kevin Mooney

November 20, 2010

Political operatives connected with renamed ACORN affiliates are in position to help swing close, competitive races for left-leaning candidates in the 2012 elections, according to former insiders and policy analysts who are familiar with the network’s operations.

An ambitious rebranding scheme that began earlier this year has now accelerated to include affiliates in at least 12 states. The bankruptcy filing the organization slyly submitted on Election Day is properly viewed as “a head fake” and a “public relations gimmick” arranged to distract attention away from the partisan political activities of renamed affiliates, sources say.

It is worth recalling that the organization known in full as the Association of Community Activists for Reform Now had initially denied reports that it would be dropping its tarnished name in press statements released in the summer of 2009.  Wade Rathke, who founded ACORN in 1970, had announced on his blog that ACORN International, one of many affiliate organizations, had officially changed its name to “Community Organizations International.” Former board members who came together under the banner of ACORN 8 in response to an embezzlement scandal saw the move as a possible opener to a larger rebranding effort.

Scott Levenson, a spokesman for organization’s national leadership, issued a statement claiming that the name has not been dropped and that Rathke is no longer connected with ACORN.

“ACORN is not changing its name,” he declared. “ACORN International, is a five-year old organization from which ACORN withdrew a year ago as part of an overall restructuring process and requested that they stop using the ACORN name, which they have now done. Wade Rathke was fired as Chief Organizer of ACORN in June 2008.”

Just after ACORN’s leadership announced that it was dissolving its network on April 1 of this year, ACORN Housing, the national affiliate at the center of an undercover videotape investigation, renamed itself Affordable Housing Centers of America. Several state affiliates have now followed suit with at least one notable exception that has attracted a paucity of press coverage.

The ACORN Community Labor Organizing Center (ACLOC), which is registered in Louisiana and also maintains a strong presence in Texas, has served as a major conduit for political operations and could play a prominent role in the 2012 elections. The affiliate was prominently mentioned in a House Oversight Committee report that probed into ACORN’s financial transactions and political activities.

“According to a document provided by former ACORN employees, the ACORN Community Labor Organizing Center (“ACLOC”) led important campaigns including the Texas for Obama Campaign,” the report said. “According to the document, ACLOC raised 1.3 million dollars from political campaigns and delivered the funds directly to ACORN offices. The document noted, `[d]oes the ACORN association board want Wade [Rathke] to be this intimately involved in coordinating campaigns this close to ACORN?’ACORN readily acknowledged its partisan behavior.”

ACLOS is categorized as an “active” organization on the Louisiana Secretary of State’s web site, but it is also listed as being “Not in Good Standing for Failure to File Annual Report.”

Jacques Berry, the press secretary for Louisiana Secretary of State Jay Dardenne, said in an interview that ACLOS and other ACORN affiliates that have declined to submit their report could potentially lose their legal status.

“We are not an enforcement agency,” he explained. “We just change their designation of an organization if they miss their annual report anniversary and if they miss it three years in a row then we revoke their legal ability to do business in Louisiana. The annual report is not a financial document. It just includes basic information like name, address and if there’s any changes to any changes to pertinent information such as the makeup officers. Even if no changes are made, they need to file every year. We don’t get into financials at all that’s for the state department of revenue.”

ACLOC was founded in 2005 for purpose of building and fostering partnerships between community activists and organized labor, according to the group’s now defunct web site. In Canada, ACLOC provided “basic training” for recruits with Service Employee International Union (SEIU) who then moved into “Organizer Apprentice” positions. ACLOC has also partnered with the SEIU in Houston and Boston.

The ACORN labor group has also allied with the United Federation of Teachers (UFT) to provide “community support” for daycare providers. It also joined with the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) “to put pressure” on a grocery store chain in Arizona to allow for unionization.

There is no escaping the strong nexus that exists between ACORN and organized labor. Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), the current ranking minority member on the House Oversight Committee, has reported extensively on this partnership and how it relates to partisan political activities.

“SEIU/ACORN has leveraged its size, influence, and wealth to advance its policies and agendas through a complicated web of political connections, backroom negotiations, public relations, intimidation and litigation,” a February 2010 report observed. “SEIU/ACORN has spent millions of dollars and man hours supporting union friendly federal and state candidates and legislation. These connections are then used to entice employers into neutrality agreements with offers of government subsidies and union concessions.”

All told, organized labor has contributed over $10 million to ACORN, since 2005 with the SEIU contributing about $8.7 million of this sum including over $222,000 in 2009 alone, according to Labor Department records.

ACLOC was the single largest recipient of donations from the SEIU to ACORN and its many affiliates between 2005 and 2008, U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) LM-2 disclosure forms show.

The SEIU donations recorded on LM-2’s show the ACLOC Apprentice Program received $630,457 in 2008, $780,300 in 2007, $1.5 million in 2006, and $834,841 in 2005.

Going forward, the ACORN affiliates that have dropped the tarnished name may have greater flexibility and dexterity to solicit renewed financial support from long-times allies within organized labor and liberal foundations, notes Matthew Vadum, a senior editor and analyst with the Capital Research Center (CRC).

“This bankruptcy filing is really a public relations head fake,” he said. “ACORN is altering its organizational structure because the name has been sullied and damaged. But it remains a potent force.”

Continue reading here……..

==============================

The rebranding scheme began in earnest on April 1 of this year when ACORN’s national leadership announced it was dissolving the existing network. But the highly publicized proclamation was intentionally misleading, sources say.

“Always note the date, April 1.” Marcel Reid, a former board member has observed. “ACORN is not dissolving, it may be morphing, but it is still is in business and it is still in a position to receive funding, although it may be done under different names.”

Just after the April 1 announcement, ACORN Housing Corp., the national affiliate at the epicenter of undercover video investigations, renamed itself Affordable Housing Centers of America.

Several state affiliates have also followed suit:

In California, ACORN is now the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment (“ACCE”). In Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut, ACORN is New England United for Justice. In New York, ACORN is New York Communities for Change. In Arkansas, ACORN has become Arkansas Community Organizations (“ACO”). In Louisiana ACORN is “A Community Voice.” In Missouri, ACORN is Missourians Organizing for Reform and Empowerment (“MORE”). In Washington State, ACORN is Organization United for Reform (“OUR”) Washington. In Minnesota, ACORN is Minnesota Neighborhoods Organizing for Change. In Pennsylvania, ACORN has become the Pennsylvania Communities Organizing for Change (“PCOC”) and Pennsylvania Neighborhoods for Social Justice, Inc. In Texas, ACORN is now the Texas Organizing Project and the Texas Organizing Project Education Fund.

Looking ahead to 2012, the key player here is Project Vote, the national affiliate responsible for orchestrating the voter registration efforts that have stirred controversy. It has been part of the ACORN network since at least 1992 when it employed Barack Obama, according to CRC.

Read more at NetRightDaily.com: http://netrightdaily.com/2010/11/rebranded-acorn-network-will-target-battleground-states-in-2012/#ixzz15v3WphOC

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Is the “Old” New AGAIN?

Rathke, ACORN, SEIU, the Tides Foundation

May 2009

The New York Times had then reported that the Tides Foundation has provided more than $400 million dollars since 2000 to various far left outlets, a good portion of that to ACORN affiliates alone. But the Tides Foundation had insisted that none of their money ever went to ACORN. At that time, they also stated that Drummond Pike was on a “leave of absence” from their board.

However, those claims of not having ever provided any money to ACORN weren’t exactly true. Right in plain sight on the Tides Foundation website are some of their prior Grantee lists.  These are grants made up of primarily federal government dollars, some of which are then given to ACORN affiliates. Here is just a sampling of some of the ACORN grants indicated in those very lists from the Tides Foundation:

Fast forward a few years and there had been reports in 2008 that Obama himself had paid a very large sum of money to Citizens Services Inc. during his campaign. It was brought to light when an expenditure of nearly $900,000 by Barack Obama was reported to the Federal Elections Committee (FEC) for “sound & lighting equipment”, but was later officially amended after public attention and scrutiny was called to the expense and Obama had initially indicated it was recorded that way “in error”.

Despite the story having broken the news on a few occasions (originally researched by a blogger, msplaceddemocrat.com), including on Greta Van Susteren at Fox News, and in the Pittsburgh Tribune and The New York Times, it has always seemed to quiet down as quickly as it appeared.

Things seemed to get even odder the more that researchers, bloggers, reporters, and even just general American citizens started to try and make their own sense out of the connections. The twists and turns and number of names involved was just overwhelming and confusing. But one thing always stuck out like a sore thumb. One address:

1024 Elysian Fields Ave

New Orleans, LA

70117-8402

Phone: 504-943-5954

Noticeably, these are some of the other companies registered at the same address; some even sharing the same staff names, all registered under Wade Rathke or some other known ACORN affiliation:

• A. Corn
• Acorn Community Labor Organizing Center
• Acorn Community Land Association‎
• Acorn Housing Corp Of Illinois
• Acorn in New Orleans
• Acorn Institute
• Acorn National Broadcasting Network
• ACORN NATIONAL CALL
• Acorn Tenants Union‎
• Action Research
• Affiliated Media Foundation
• AFFILIATED MEDIA FOUNDATION MOVEMENT
• American Environmental Justice Project Inc‎
• American Home Day Care Workers Association
• AMFM, T
• Arkansas Institute for Social Justice‎
• Citizens Consulting Inc.
• Citizens Services Inc.
• Dale Rathke
• Gregory Fitch
• Institute for Social Justice Inc.
• JOANNE ACORN
• Labor Link
• LEE, MARIE A
• LITTLE, ROCK NEW
• Missouri, Tax J
• PERC Express Reserve
• Phoenix Organizing and Support Center, Inc.
• Project Vote
• PUGH, LITTLE ROC
• Service Employees Intl Union
• STREET, F
• TAX J MISSOURI
• Voting for America‎
• Wal-Mart (yes, really…)
• Wal-Mart Organizing Project
• WHIPPLE, WILLIAM

More here……..

==============================

Looking through the Tides Foundation Grantees for 2009, this popped out:

Tides Foundation

$ 3,097,000.00

U.S.A.

http://www.tidesfoundation.org

Tides foundation is giving itself money?  Or is this Soros’ money?

http://www.tidesfoundation.org/fileadmin/tf_pdfs/Tides-Foundation-List-of-Grantees-2009.pdf

==============================

HAD ENOUGH……YET……AMERICA?

We are not racist.

We are not violent.

We are just NO LONGER SILENT.

“I AM……….Determined.”

ACORN Loses its Funding Ban Appeal

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August 13

AP is reporting that the federal  Court of Appeals overturned a district court  which had ruled unconstitutional Congress’ ban on future ACORN funding.

h/t: Dan Riehl

The lower court decision was preposterous and the reversal is both understandable and welcome.

Clarice Feldman

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2010/08/acorn_loses_its_funding_ban_ap.html

==============================

As an aside:

An excerpt from an article titled : “Radicalizing Community”

Link

After asserting the importance of human agency in the struggle for social justice, it is essential to keep in mind how difficult the struggle has been and how quickly opportunities are closed by those in power. Cloward and Piven (1999) assert that throughout the twentieth century, for example, there were only two five-year periods, 1933–1938 and 1963–1968, when significant gains were won. The rest of the time, progressive forces were either back on their heels, treading water, or planting seeds. This analysis does not highlight gains made by other history makers, including movement activists, trade union members, and Left political formations, who struggled in all those other ninety years in the past century around so many other causes. But the gains during the ten years were definitely transformative ones, where the national political economy and especially the national state were forced to expand the social welfare system, engage in redistributionist politics, and support the broad struggles for human rights and inclusion. The authors were clearly drawing a historical lesson, more than detailing history making. The lesson remains worth repeating.

People make history when they challenge the existing power and when the times are right. But those right times are few and far between, and they do not last very long. Community organizing has a critical role to play in the United States, United Kingdom, and Canada, and this current economic crisis offers a window of opportunity that students and makers of history should recognize and make the most of. We see the current moment as filled with potential, but only if people act. On the other hand, whether major or minor gains are made in the present, the potential shift underway that began with the economic crisis and the presidential election in the United States should play itself out for the near future, either reversing neoliberal policies of the past thirty years or reforming its gross excesses.

Still, the future of democracy and the egalitarian project depends on Left opposition. Mary Ellen Lease, in a similar historical moment, working with American agrarian populists, challenged her fellow history makers to “raise less corn and more hell.” It was an idea and strategy in the finest traditions of democratic dissent. It would do us all well to heed the varied lessons of the past, understand history better, and seek to become the history makers feared by those who have controlled the forces of history for more than a generation.

“Radicalizing Community” is an excerpt from Contesting Community: The Limits and Potential of Local Organizing, to be published in June 2010 by Rutgers University Press,

http://rutgerspress.rutgers.edu

==================================

America:  ”Had Enough” of the Progressive agenda?

The ONLY thing the Progressives FEAR is the BALLOT BOX.

November 2010 is coming…….

============================================

NOT RACIST.

NOT VIOLENT.

JUST SILENT NO MORE.

American Watch: Congress to Enable ACORN’s Comeback?

 

Matthew Vadum writes:

Enabling ACORN’s Comeback

12-10-2009

Congress — and possibly Citigroup — may be gearing up to start funding the organized crime syndicate ACORN again. The current federal funding ban expires Dec. 18.

On Tuesday evening the House Appropriations Committee rejected on a party line vote of 9 to 5 an amendment offered by Rep. Tom Latham (R-Iowa) that would have blocked federal funding of the radical advocacy group.

The amendment was needed because the Obama administration thumbed its nose at a provision in spending legislation that banned ACORN funding until the end of next week.

In a ruling revealed late last month by the Justice Department the Obama administration invented a loophole allowing the government to continue funding the president’s friends at ACORN. Through the magic of legal interpretation, the language forbidding funding the group was transformed by Acting Assistant Attorney General David J. Barron into a requirement not “to refuse payment on binding contractual obligations that predate” the original funding ban.

Latham’s amendment would have closed the loophole by banning funding for ACORN, including any funding covering “a contract or other agreement entered into before the date of the enactment of this or any such other Act.”

The bottom line is that the ACORN funding prohibition language remains in the massive fiscal 2010 spending measure taken up by appropriators this week but ACORN ally Eric Holder’s Justice Department has rendered that language virtually meaningless.

The Obama administration’s bailout of ACORN may help keep the financially distressed group that had been considering filing bankruptcy before Christmas open for business.

The bailout should be music to the ears of Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.), a huge fan of ACORN who has given thousands of dollars over the years to the ACORN network. Nadler urged ACORN’s lawyer to sue the government, arguing that a ban on funding constituted a “bill of attainder.” Within weeks, ACORN took his advice. 

This wouldn’t be much of a problem except that Nadler is head of a congressional subcommittee that might have to investigate ACORN. So far he has resisted calls to launch an inquiry into ACORN’s wrongdoings.

If this isn’t grounds for a congressional ethics probe, I don’t what is.

I suspect Nadler might even be a member of ACORN. I asked his testy communications director Ilan Kayatsky this question a few days ago and all I got was a snarky, error-filled email that didn’t answer my question.

Citigroup may also be on the verge of funding ACORN again.

Before ACORN issued a sham report exonerating itself from allegations of wrongdoing, Citigroup CEO Vikram Pandit said his company was awaiting the ACORN-sponsored inquiry into the group’s corruption that was prompted by the emergence this fall of several hidden-camera videos.

The videos show ACORN employees across America eager to help a couple posing as a pimp and prostitute use government funding to open a brothel staffed by child prostitutes smuggled illegally into the country.

While that evidence was initially enough to convince Congress to cut off funding for the criminal group, it wasn’t enough for Pandit. Asked if he could envision Citi permanently cutting financial ties to ACORN, he said it “completely depends” on the outcome of the report.

Yesterday Citi spokeswoman Andrea Hurst confirmed a decision hasn’t yet been made on re-funding ACORN. “We are reviewing all materials,” she told me in an email.

Citi is a Big Government lovers’ bank that has long been a slave to left-wing fads. In what should be a gentlemen-start-your-engines moment for class-action lawyers representing Citi shareholders, in October the bank won an award for being the “Most Innovative Bank in Climate Change.” Citi and a host of other huge corporations may be rich targets to hit when the unraveling in progress of Al Gore’s anthropogenic global warming swindle is complete.

Citigroup’s charitable foundation has given ACORN affiliates more than $1 million since 2003. It has funded ACORN Institute ($500,000 in 2007), ACORN Baltimore ($5,000 in 2003), ACORN Child Care Providers for Action ($4,000 in 2003), and American Institute for Social Justice ($500,000 in 2005).

The foundation has also funded other left-wing groups including Jesse Jackson’s Rainbow/PUSH Coalition, World Resources Institute, Aspen Institute, Rainforest Alliance, and the Council on Foreign Relations.

Meanwhile, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) is concerned that a proposed “Consumer Financial Protection Oversight Board” may give ACORN a voice in shaping financial regulations.

Provisions creating the oversight board are included in legislation that would establish a federal banking bureaucracy to be called the “Consumer Financial Protection Agency.”

Bachmann said yesterday that the vague wording of the legislation (HR 4173) would allow representatives from ACORN to sit on the board.

ACORN was a pioneer in using the Community Reinvestment Act, enacted in 1977, to blackmail banks. Today it is pushing to expand the reach of the law, even though it played a role in the subprime mortgage meltdown.

Read the entire article HERE.

 

End note:

Emoboldened areas mine for focal points.

 

 

 

 

How ACORN Hides Behind Fake Names

 

 

From Canada Free Press: All credit goes to the author and the website posting this article.

By Warner Todd Huston

October 9, 2009

Many states have ways to look up the businesses, organizations and people with whom the state does business. Illinois has such a service on the Secretary of State’s website.

In Illinois there is a way to search the folks the state does business with on a page titled Corporate/LLC Search / Certificate of Good Standing. There you can input the name of a corporation or LLC and find out the address of its offices, its registered manager’s name, etc.

Sadly, this feature is not easy to use. The problem is you have to know the actual name of the corporation you are looking for. Of course, if you don’t really know what you are looking for you just cannot find anything useful.

The problem with the Illinois search system is that groups like ACORN register hundreds of different shell corporations to hide behind. They register them to their workers and their directors and then they offer them to government as a vendor or organization for the state’s use. Naturally, state funds  flow like water into ACORN’s coffers as a result.

Other states have easier ways to search their state records. In the state of Louisiana, for instance, one can search by a person’s name. On the Louisiana site you are not limited to the name of the corporation like you are in Illinois so it is a bit easier to find vendors and corporations that are approved to work with the state. (Louisiana mainpage, or go to the search only page)

On the Louisiana site I typed in the name of ACORN founder Wade Rathke to see what corporations and LLCs he had registered with the state. I also tried Dale Rathke, his embezzler brother, to see what he had registered with the state. The results are amazing.

What I found were dozens of different shell corporations registered to Wade and Dale Rathke all of which have the potential of reaping thousands of dollars from the state of Louisiana. The same thing is happening in every state of the union and it isn’t just Wade and Dale doing this. ACORN employees at all levels are doing this in order to hide the fact that they are registering ACORN agencies.

Louisiana List (all registered to New Orleans):

RATHKE, STEPHEN WADE

Agent of “UNITED LABOR ORGANIZATIONS”
President of “TEXAS UNITED CITY-COUNTY EMPLOYEES, INC.”
President of “BALTIMORE ORGANIZING AND SUPPORT CENTER, INC.”
President of “WORKING FAMILIES ASSOCIATION, INC.”
Member of “COALITION FOR ECONOMIC JUSTICE IN , L.L.C.”
President of “CHIEF ORGANIZER FUND, INC.”
Director of “CHIEF ORGANIZER FUND, INC.”
President of “ACORN INTERNATIONAL, INC.”
President of “WAL-MART ALLIANCE FOR REFORM NOW, INC.”
President of “AFFILIATED MEDIA FOUNDATION MOVEMENT, INC.”
Director of “UNITED LABOR ORGANIZATIONS”
Vice-President of “METRO TECHNICAL INSTITUTE, INC.”
Affiliated with “ELYSIAN FIELDS PARTNERSHIP”
Director of “PARENT TEACHER GROUP OF CHINCHUBA SCHOOL, INC.”
President of “GREENWELL SPRINGS CORPORATION”
President of “BROAD STREET CORPORATION, INC.”
President of “SIXTH AVENUE CORPORATION”
President of “FIFTEENTH STREET CORPORATION”
Director of “FIFTEENTH STREET CORPORATION”
President of “ACORN BENEFICIAL ASSOCIATION, INC.”
President of “ACORN FUND, INC.”
President of “HOUSTON ORGANIZING AND SUPPORT CENTER, INC.”
Director of “HOUSTON ORGANIZING AND SUPPORT CENTER, INC.”
Director of “AUSTIN ORGANIZING AND SUPPORT CENTER, INC.”
Treasurer of “AUSTIN ORGANIZING AND SUPPORT CENTER, INC.”
President of “MONTANA RADIO NETWORK, INC.”
Director of “MONTANA RADIO NETWORK, INC.”
President of “PHOENIX ORGANIZING AND SUPPORT CENTER, INC.”
Agent of “PARENT TEACHER GROUP OF CHINCHUBA SCHOOL, INC.”

RATHKE, DALE

Treasurer of “ACORN MANAGEMENT CORPORATION, INC.”
Secretary/Treasurer of “METRO TECHNICAL INSTITUTE, INC.”
Affiliated with “ELYSIAN FIELDS PARTNERSHIP”
Director of “ COMMUNITY HOUSING ORGANIZATION, INC.”
Secretary of “ASSOCIATED REGIONAL MAINTENANCE SYSTEMS, INC.”
Secretary/Treasurer of “SIXTH AVENUE CORPORATION”
Secretary of “MASSACHUSETTS ACORN HOUSING CORPORATION”
Director of “CRESCENT CITY BROADCASTING CORPORATION”
Treasurer of “CRESCENT CITY BROADCASTING CORPORATION”
Secretary of “SHREVEPORT COMMUNITY TELEVISION, INC.”
Secretary of “LOUISIANA ACORN FAIR HOUSING, INC.”
Agent of “MASSACHUSETTS ACORN HOUSING CORPORATION”

You can be sure to find a similar list of corporations registered in Illinois and every other state. These registered entities are really shell corporations of ACORN.

Illinoisans, join us and Say NO to ACORN.

Sign the petition and tell Governor Quinn that you want a real investigation to end corruption for good.

http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/15607

 

Warner Todd Huston Most recent columns

Warner Todd Huston’s thoughtful commentary, sometimes irreverent often historically based, is featured on many websites such as renewamerica.us, townhall.com, opinioneditorials.com, and americandaily.com, among many, many others. He has also written for several history magazines, and appears in the new book “Americans on Politics, Policy and Pop Culture,” which can be purchased on amazon.com. He is also the owner and operator of Publius’ Forum.

Warner can be reached at: igcolonel@hotmail.com

 

Democrats In Congress Do The “Hoodwink” and “Rope A Dope” on America! Dems Will Start Funding ACORN Again On Halloween!

 

Bachmann: Dems Will Start Funding ACORN Again on Halloween

 

 

 

Now America KNOWS why some Democrats seemed to agree to this!  They KNEW what was up all along!

Are you pi$$ed America?

Funded ONE MILLION dollars through HOMELAND SECURITY?

Janet Napolitano should be excoriated for this!

Congress should DEMAND a full AUDIT of Homeland Security to see how much in federal funding has gone to ACORN all in the name of “Safety” and “Security”…….

 

 

ACORN’s Man in the White House: Patrick Gaspard (Obama’s Karl Rove)

 

 

**All credit for this article goes to Matthew Vadum posted on American Spectator site.

http://spectator.org/archives/2009/09/28/acorns-man-in-the-white-house/

 

Patrick Gaspard

 

ACORN’s Man in the White House

By Matthew Vadum on 9.28.09

Newly discovered evidence shows the radical advocacy group ACORN has a man in the Obama White House.

This power behind the throne is longtime ACORN operative Patrick Gaspard. He holds the title of White House political affairs director, the same title Karl Rove held in President Bush’s White House.

Evidence shows that years before he joined the Obama administration, Gaspard was ACORN boss Bertha Lewis’s political director in New York.

Lewis, the current “chief organizer” or CEO of ACORN, was head of New York ACORN from at least 1994 through 2008, when she took over as national leader of ACORN. With Gaspard at work in the White House, Lewis might as well be speaking to President Obama through an earpiece as he goes about his daily business ruining the country.

Erick Erickson of the website RedState recently did an excellent job explaining the relationship of Gaspard to Lewis and President Obama so I won’t take up space here recalling all his valuable insights. Suffice it to say Erickson reported that Gaspard figures prominently in Lewis’s rolodex, which Erickson has in his possession.

Skeptics among you may ask, How do we actually know the low-profile Gaspard, who prefers to work outside the public spotlight and who can hardly be found in Nexis searches at all, was Lewis’s right hand man?

Because Gaspard’s employment with the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now is acknowledged by no less an authority than ACORN founder Wade Rathke himself. Rathke writes at his blog: 

Tell me that 1199′s former political director, Patrick Gaspard (who was ACORN New York’s political director before that) didn’t reach out from the White House and help make that happen, and I’ll tell you to take some remedial classes in “politics 101.”

The “before that” time period Rathke is referring to is 2003 when Gaspard was executive vice president for political and legislative affairs for 1199SEIU United Healthcare Workers East. According to publicly available disclosure documents, Gaspard registered as a federal lobbyist for SEIU on Oct. 22, 2007. The registration and subsequent disclosures indicate he lobbied Congress on SCHIP, the State Children’s Health Insurance Program.

Incidentally, the lines between ACORN and radical left-wing SEIU, whose acronym stands for Service Employees International Union, become fuzzy in places.

SEIU Locals 100 and 880 are part of the ACORN network of organizations. Local 100 in New Orleans is headed by Rathke. SEIU Local 880 in Chicago is headed by longtime ACORN insider Keith Kelleher.

You’d never know about the SEIU connection from visiting ACORN’s website, http://www.acorn.org. That’s because the website has been receiving a thorough scrubbing in recent months. On ACORN’s affiliated organizations page, references to the two SEIU locals mysteriously disappeared.

It’s worth noting that Gaspard’s ties to ACORN, SEIU, and Lewis go way back.

According to the Complete Marquis Who’s Who, Gaspard has a long history of political involvement stretching back to at least 1989 when he volunteered for the David Dinkins mayoral campaign in New York City. In 2003 he became acting field director for Howard Dean’s presidential bid. He was national field director in 2004 for America Coming Together, a now-defunct get-out-the-vote operation that received a $775,000 fine for campaign finance abuses. In 2006 Gaspard was acting political director for SEIU International.

Gaspard also worked for New York’s Working Families Party, which is an appendage of ACORN. Lewis is a co-founder of that party — which endorsed Obama last year —  and has close ties to Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-New York) who has been most reluctant to have the House Judiciary subcommittee he chairs investigate ACORN.

Nadler invented the incredibly creative argument that recent legislative language aimed at depriving ACORN of federal funding constitutes an unconstitutional “bill of attainder.” Perhaps singling out the mafia for a federal funds cutoff would be unconstitutional too in his eyes.

Meanwhile, the American public is beginning to realize that ACORN is a vast criminal conspiracy whose reach extends to the highest levels of the U.S. government.

Obama’s statement that he’s barely aware of ACORN’s problems is nothing short of ridiculous, especially so because Patrick Gaspard was a political director for ACORN New York.

Last year he worked as national political director for the Obama campaign followed by a stint as associate personnel director for the Obama-Biden transition team.

As the old Washington saying goes, politics is personnel. Who knows how many administration officials were put in place by Gaspard with direct input from ACORN’s Bertha Lewis. It boggles the mind. 

We also now know the Obama administration was lying about ACORN’s high level involvement in the 2010 Census. The coordination between ACORN and the Census was revealed as a result of a Freedom of Information Act request filed by the relentless investigator Tegan Millspaw of Judicial Watch. The Census and other government agencies have cut ties with ACORN as the ACORN scandal widens.

We have to wonder: when it comes to ACORN, what else is the Obama administration lying about?

 

Matthew Vadum is a senior editor at Capital Research Center, a Washington, D.C. think tank that studies the politics of philanthropy.