ACORN

ACORN, short for The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, began in 1970 with noble goals. They wanted better housing and wages for the poor, more community development investment from banks and governments, and better public schools.

They fought and “demonstrated” and were able to push through many of the policies that led to our current financial crisis. Any bank that didn’t lower credit standards and give loans to people that couldn’t pay them back were labeled “racist” and ACORN would conduct strikes against them. ACORN protesters will break into private offices, show up at a banker’s home to intimidate his family, or pour protesters into bank lobbies to scare away customers, all in an effort to force a lowering of credit standards for poor and minority customers.

This wasn’t too big of a problem until the 1990’s. Freddie and Fannie would not buy the bad loans. The banks that got pushed around by ACORN would try to sell their risky mortgages to Fannie and Freddie, and they said “no way!” Unfortunately, ACORN found a friend in President Clinton and many Democratic members of Congress.

In June of 1995, President Clinton announced his new strategy for raising home-ownership in America to an all-time high. He said that: “Our homeownership strategy will not cost the taxpayers one extra cent. It will not require legislation.” Clinton meant that these informal partnerships between Fannie and Freddie and groups like ACORN would make mortgages available to people with bad credit and people without money.

Great plan…we know now that this has indeed cost taxpayers far more than “one extra cent”.

It’s probably important to mention that Barack Obama was the attorney representing ACORN at this time. Just a small detail…

Another small detail to mention is that ACORN is funded by our tax dollars! Seriously!! And Democrats tried to give them more money through the recent “bailout”. Remember…the one that started out at $700 billion…then they added $150 billion in pork. Yeah, that bailout. Well, the first version had more money going to ACORN! Thank heavens that didn’t make it through. At least the pork is just going to NASCAR and wooden arrow makers.

So we have the American taxpayers giving this group lots of money. This has given them the ability to jump into a whole new area.

Voter Registration.

Yep. We are paying for them to register as many liberals as it takes to get Barack Obama elected. Of course, Obama is doing his part too. His campaign gave ACORN over $800,000 for get-out-the-vote efforts. Somehow he initially reported that this contribution was for “staging, sound and lighting.” His campaign says it was a “clerical error” and has amended their report. I’m sure he wasn’t trying to hide the fact that he gave a large sum of money to a liberal organization that has been convicted of voter fraud. No…it was a “clerical error”. (This happened at the end of August…you probably didn’t hear about it…why would the media run a negative story about Obama?)

This year ACORN is spending $16 million to register new Democrats. The question is: how many are real? Mickey Mouse…Tony Romo…probably not very many of them.

Just to prove my point…here are some of the states where the fraud is taking place. Notice all of the battleground states…coincidence? I think not. Why bother trying to win the election fair and square when you can falsely register an entire phonebook and be done with it?

Connecticut - falsifying/forging voter registration cards; Bridgeport, Connecticut estimates about 20% of Acorn's registrations were faulty.

Florida - falsifying voter registration;

Indiana - falsifying/forging voter registration cards; Lake County has already found more than 2,100 bogus applications among the 5,000 Acorn dumped right before the deadline. "All the signatures looked exactly the same," said Ruthann Hoagland, of the county election board.

Michigan - "a sizeable number of duplicate and fraudulent applications."

Missouri - looking into hundreds of dubious Acorn registrations.

Nevada - a raid on Acorn's offices, following complaints of false names and fictional addresses (including the starting lineup of the Dallas Cowboys). Nevada's Clark County Registrar of Voters Larry Lomax said he saw rampant fraud in 2,000 to 3,000 applications Acorn submitted weekly.

New Mexico - hiring felons to work on registration drives;

North Carolina - fraudulent registrations submitted;

Ohio - 200,000 fraudulent registrations (no, I did not add a zero…it’s really that many. The crazy part is that the election in that state will probably be won by less than 200,000 votes) one man ACORN registered to vote over 70 times; The very liberal Secretary of State is trying to let all 200,000 stay, because legitimate voters will be disenfranchised if they have to prove their information is correct. PLEASE!!!

Pennsylvania - $2k reward offered for ACORN temp charged with perjury, identity theft and vote fraud;

Texas - 40% of 27K registrations from Houston rejected;

Washington - worst case of registration fraud in state history;

Wisconsin - hiring felons as “special registration deputies” and investigating Acorn employees for, "making people up or registering people that were still in prison."

This means that in 2/3 of the states where ACORN ran voter registration drives, they were involved with fraudulent registrations.

That’s just this year!

In 2004, four Acorn employees were indicted in Ohio for submitting false voter registrations. In 2005, two Colorado Acorn workers were found to have submitted false registrations. Four Acorn Missouri employees were indicted in 2006; five were found guilty in Washington state in 2007 for filling out registration forms with names from a phone book. It goes on and on. And did I mention that they are funded by the federal government?

So how does Barack the "community organizer" fit into all of this? Right in the middle of it!

In 1992 he led voter registration efforts as the director of Project Vote, which included Acorn.

He served as a lawyer for Acorn in 1995

During his tenure on the board of Chicago's Woods Fund, that body funneled more than $200,000 to Acorn

In a speech he gave to ACORN in December 2007, he said that "before I even get inaugurated, during the transition, we're going to be calling all of you in to help us shape the agenda." Holy cow! They are NOT the ones I want shaping the agenda!

This past November, he applauded Acorn's leaders saying "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." Did you catch that…"smack dab in the middle of it"

And of course there is the $832,000 donation this year.

Obama says that he has “limited ties” to ACORN. Sure.

There is good news:

The numbers in Ohio are so ridiculously high that the FBI is getting involved. They are investigating ACORN to see if there is a “coordinated national scam.” Hopefully something can be done to stop ACORN.

Today, House of Representatives Republican leader John Boehner called for ACORN to be barred from receiving federal monies, and for a ban on ACORN contracting with candidates for federal office. He said, "ACORN spent decades promoting the housing policies that brought America's economy to the brink, and similarly over the years has committed fraud on our system of elections"

Now that’s a guy I’d vote for!