Everyone in America needs to see this video. The police in Baton Rouge trample on American’s free speech rights at the direction of Acorn. Is this the change people were expecting when they voted for Obama?
Since when is it illegal for the two opposing sides of HEALTH CARE to talk? One other point I am not certain who the biggest thugs are, the Baton Rouge Police or the ACORN thugs! The Baton Rouge police need to go back to school and relearn the US Constitution and stop trampling First Amendment Rights!
Obamacare should be renamed Obamadeathcare because it really is. Not only will I have to get counseling every five years to instruct me on ways to end my life, people with special needs may not be enrolled in health care. I assert that this government run death care will not only end the life of the elderly, the disabled and now special needs people like children of veterans who have spina bifida. It is right in the House Death Care bill;
Family Security Matters has summarized a good portion of the 1000 page death care package.
Take a look at what actually is in the Health Care bill. Obama makes disingenuous comments like “You’ll still keep your doctor” or “You’ll keep your existing health care.” He is either lying to us or he has no idea what is in it. Take a peek at the full report, or look at some of the highlights here:
Pg 22 of the HC Bill mandates the Government will audit books of all employers that self insure. Can you imagine what that will do to small businesses? Every one will abandon “self insurance” and go on Government insurance. So when Obama says that there will still be private health care, it’s simply a lie: this mandate will force employers to abandon their private plans.
Pg 30 Sec 123 of HC bill – a Government committee (good luck with that!) will decide what treatments/benefits a person may receive.
Pg 29 lines 4-16 in the HC bill – YOUR HEALTHCARE WILL BE RATIONED! (We all knew this, because health care is rationed in Canada and Britain, but Obama kept saying it would not be).
Pg 42 of HC Bill – The Health Choices Commissioner will choose your HC Benefits for you. You will have no choice!
PG 50 Section 152 in HC bill – HC will be provided to ALL non US citizens, illegal or otherwise.
Pg 58 HC Bill – Government will have real-time access to individual’s finances and a National ID Healthcard will be issued!
Pg 59 HC Bill lines 21-24 Government will have direct access to your bank accts for election funds transfer
PG 65 Sec 164 is a payoff subsidized plan for retirees and their families in Unions & community organizations (read: ACORN).
Pg 72 Lines 8-14 Government will create an HC Exchange to bring private HC plans under Government control.
PG 84 Sec 203 HC bill – Government mandates ALL benefit packages for private HC plans in the Exchange.
PG 85 Line 7 HC Bill – Specifics of Benefit Levels for Plans = The Government will ration your Healthcare!
PG 91 Lines 4-7 HC Bill – Government mandates linguistic appropriate services. Example – Translation for illegal aliens.
Pg 95 HC Bill Lines 8-18 The Government will use groups, i.e. ACORN & Americorps, to sign up individuals for Government HC plan.
PG 85 Line 7 HC Bill – Specifics of Benefit Levels for Plans. AARP members – your Health care WILL be rationed.
-PG 102 Lines 12-18 HC Bill – Medicaid Eligible Individuals will be automatically enrolled in Medicaid. No choice.
pg 124 lines 24-25 HC No company can sue Government on price fixing. No “judicial review” against Government Monopoly.
pg 127 Lines 1-16 HC Bill – Doctors/ AMA – The Government will tell YOU what you can earn.
Pg 145 Line 15-17 An Employer MUST auto enroll employees into public option plan. NO CHOICE.
Pg 126 Lines 22-25 Employers MUST pay for HC for part time employees AND their families.
Pg 149 Lines 16-24 ANY Employer with payroll $400k & above who does not provide public option pays 8% tax on all payroll.
pg 150 Lines 9-13 Businesses with payroll between $251k & $400k who don’t provide public option pay 2-6% tax on all payroll.
Pg 167 Lines 18-23 ANY individual who doesn’t have acceptable HC according to Government will be taxed 2.5% of income.
Pg 170 Lines 1-3 HC Bill Any NONRESIDENT Alien is exempt from individual taxes. (Americans will pay.)
Pg 195 HC Bill -officers & employees of HC Admin (the GOVERNMENT) will have access to ALL Americans’ finances and personal records.
PG 203 Line 14-15 HC – “The tax imposed under this section shall not be treated as tax” Yes, it says that.
Pg 239 Line 14-24 HC Bill Government will reduce physician services for Medicaid. Seniors, low income, poor affected.
Pg 241 Line 6-8 HC Bill – Doctors – doesn’t matter what specialty – will all be paid the same.
PG 253 Line 10-18 Government sets value of Doctor’s time, professional judgment, etc. Literally, value of humans.
PG 265 Sec 1131Government mandates & controls productivity for private HC industries.
PG 268 Sec 1141 Federal Government regulates rental & purchase of power driven wheelchairs.
PG 272 SEC. 1145. TREATMENT OF CERTAIN CANCER HOSPITALS – Cancer patients – welcome to rationing!
Page 280 Sec 1151 The Government will penalize hospitals for what Government deems preventable readmissions.
Pg 298 Lines 9-11 Doctors who treat a patient during initial admission that results in a readmission – Government will penalize you.
Pg 317 L 13-20 OMG!! PROHIBITION on ownership/investment. Government tells Doctors what/how much they can own.
Pg 317-318 lines 21-25,1-3 PROHIBITION on expansion – Government will mandate hospitals cannot expand.
pg 321 2-13 Hospitals have opportunity to apply for exception BUT community input required. Can u say ACORN?!
Pg335 L 16-25 Pg 336-339 – Government mandates establishment of outcome-based measures which of course forces health care rationing.
Pg 341 Lines 3-9 Government has authority to disqualify Medicare Adv Plans, HMOs, etc., forcing people into Government plan.
Pg 354 Sec 1177 – Government will RESTRICT enrollment of Special needs people!
Pg 379 Sec 1191 Government creates more bureaucracy – Telehealth Advisory Committee. HC by phone.
PG 425 Lines 4-12 Government mandates Advance Care Planning Consultations. Think Senior Citizens end of life prodding.
Pg 425 Lines 17-19 Government will instruct & consult regarding living wills, durable powers of attorney. Mandatory!
PG 425 Lines 22-25, 426 Lines 1-3 Government provides approved list of end of life resources, guiding you in how to die.
PG 427 Lines 15-24 Government mandates program for orders for end of life. The Government has a say in how your life ends.
Pg 429 Lines 1-9 An “advanced care planning consultant” will be used frequently as patients’ health deteriorates.
PG 429 Lines 10-12 “advanced care consultation” may include an ORDER for end of life plans. AN ORDER from the Government to end a life!
Pg 429 Lines 13-25 – The Government will specify which Doctors can write an end of life order.
PG 430 Lines 11-15 The Government will decide what level of treatment you will have at end of life.
Pg 469 – Community Based Home Medical Services/Non profit orgs. (ACORN Medical Services here?)
Page 472 Lines 14-17 PAYMENT TO COMMUNITY-BASED ORGANIZATION. 1 monthly payment to a community-based organization. (Like ACORN?)
PG 489 Sec 1308 The Government will cover Marriage & Family therapy. Which means they will insert Government into our marriages.
Pg 494-498 Government will cover Mental Health Services including defining, creating, rationing those services. You’d better speak up now before you are on the “advanced care consultation” list.
This death care bill gives the government the right to decide when your life begins (they are trying to make provisions for abortion coverage) and mandate when and how your life will end. Better start saying goodbye to your folks, grandparents and even young (not even 50) people like me.
While most Americans remain comfortably ensconced on their sofas in front of their wall mounted flat screen televisions, there are some American Patriots who are hitting the streets. Their actions are stopping ACORN and Obama’s Organize for America:
The Conservative & Libertarian groups as well as Gathering of Eagle members were there to protest against healthcare reform. They pushed back and took “direct action” against ACORN affiliates: Organize For America, ACT-Now, & USA-CAN who were pushing blank petitions upon shoppers at a mall with no explanation.
One of the participants reported on the “direct action” in Long Island:
ACORN and their new front group Act Now were pwned by Tea Party Patriots again on Long Island!
When they couldn’t win their arguments with facts, the ACORN employees tried to intimidate the Tea Party folks. No way that could work with dedicated Patriots! So ACORN cut and run when the going got tough, and repeated that sorry performance twice in one day.
[...]
I’m no reporter so bear with me. Today I felt the same pride inside me matching the feeling I get whenever I read of our Founding Fathers’ activism. It might sound over exaggerated, but it doesn’t change how I feel. Today we scored a victory some may see as trivial, I see as momentous. Either way as a patriot it is overwhelming. Today I witnessed and participated in seeing ‘grass-roots folk’ come together in an instant and square off with, as of yesterday, an unchallenged foe in our cause-ACORN. We arrived at King Kullen this morning in Commack and as planned found ACORN petitioners signing up unaware patrons of the shopping center coming and going. They were asking people to sign a petition favoring Obama’s Health Care plan. We were there to give the other side and people listened.
ACORN produced four ‘workers’ we amassed 40 patriots complete with signs, banners, flyers, stickers, posters and a few loud voices.
ACORN 4 – Patriots 40.
I was told they were ‘workers’ for the organization We-Can(?) We were the people on the street giving up a beautiful warm Saturday morning to be heard.
I once read that 1 man defending his home is worth 20 paid mercenaries sent to destroy it. Believe it.
ACORN being outnumbered, out voiced and literally out debated left the area in a hurry. We followed.
After receiving communication that they fled to Stop and Shop in Bohemia 40+ patriots showed up and overwhelmed them there too. What a sight. Again ACORN took flight. They didn’t know how to react other then demanding we leave. We demanded an equal moment of time to discuss the meat and potatoes of the Obama health Care plan, they refused and retreated. I witnessed many passersby refusing to sign their petition; one even scratched their name off the list after we spoke to them. Almost every person I encountered was interested and I was relieved as almost all agreed with us. There was a little drama when a passerby vehemently argued for the plan, it was contentious but that’s liberty and democracy at work.
The only news agency seen was a local group from Alternative News based here on LI. The police were on scene, but remained out of the way as we did our own policing and respecting of the peace.
Score this a huge victory. I hope this inspires everyone to get up and get off the side-lines. You want change, than be silent no more! Silence is another form of consent, don’t be silent-don’t consent.
Known organizations present and represented: Campaign for Liberty, CSA, 9/12 Glenn Beck group, and resistnet.com by me. Others were ordinary people who heard last night and dropped their plans and showed up. What a moment.
Obamadeathcare is no better than assisted suicide! Get off your couches, turn off the televisions—GETUP! ACT UP! SPEAK UP! Stop this obamination of a death care bill. Stop Congress from trampling on your health care or _______ finish the sentence yourself!
Check out Gateway Pundit there are some great comments at his site.
I have completed reading the 88 page House of Representatives’ ACORN report. There is one paragraph that stands out from all other parts of the report. Here is that paragraph (and what I uncovered in August, 2008):
More factually, former Oklahoma Congresswoman Cleta Mitchell was concerned about ACORN violating the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971:
A not-for-profit corporation is treated no differently from a for-profit corporation for purposes of the federal campaign finance laws, which absolutely prohibit corporate contributions to campaigns of federal candidates and / or corporate expenditures to support or oppose a federal candidate. The FECA further prohibit expenditures by non-profit corporations such as ACORN and Project Vote which are made in coordination with, at the request, behest, suggestion or with the material involvement of a federal campaign (such as the Obama presidential campaign). The solicitation of funds by an organization for purposes of engaging in partisan campaign activities or to support or assist a federal campaign and/or candidate convert the organization into a Section 527 political organization and further [instantiate] a federal political committee required to register with the Federal Election Commission (“FEC”). Contributions to such an organization are limited to $5,000 per calendar year and may not be received / accepted from corporations. Further, expenditures made by an organization in coordination with a candidate or political committee are considered contributions to that committee and are subject to the $5,000 per election limit.
If I am analyzing this part of the FECA laws correctly not only did ACORN violate laws so did Obama for America. This means that President Obama knows he violated the law but started the whole Professor Gates/Cambridge Police “race riot” during Wednesday nights “Death Care” press conference to hide the truth hidden in the Congressional report.
Many of us have known for a very long time that nothing, and I mean NOTHING is done by accident with this administration. Y’all have realized by now that every single event surrounding this “residency” is planned, orchestrated, rehearsed, and every possible contingency is taken into account before the event is allowed to happen. You know this, right?
At least five times today I stated that the ‘the police acted stupidly’ comment made by Bambi on Wednesday night was so over the top that it had to be an actual planned event with the distinct possibility that it was a distract and deflect measure. That may not be the only reason, but it is the usual one with the Bambi think tank inside the WH. He knew exactly what he was going to say if he had to walk it back, and he gets an “F” for his apology. He never meant to apologize. Put this whole situation into perspective; how long did it take Barack Obama to make mention of the killing of Private William Long by the islamic jihadist?
Wake up people! It is time that the media and Americans stop watching what Obama is doing in front of the cameras, always check out what is going on in the background. Have you heard any real coverage of this report except on Fox, which they gave all of five minutes.
Rush Limbaugh agrees that Obama is all about subterfuge…distract and deflect at all costs even if it means insulting the Cambridge Police.
Obama’s apology was no apology just more subterfuge so even Fox News dropped the story on the House of Representatives’ Congressional ACORN report like a “hot potato.”
I know the the title is shocking but it is true. According to the House Health Care bill as a Medicare recipient I will have to undergo mandatory counseling every five years to discuss the end of life. That counseling is okay but not when the government mandates it.
The counseling has one very disturbing aspect to it. I will be counseled on how to end my life. I am not even 50 years old yet. But the government is going to ration my health care on two fronts now through Medicare and through the Department of Veterans Affairs.
Betsy McCaughey is a private citizen who has actually read the House Health Care bill. The things it contains are not just an assault on the elderly but anyone else who is currently on Medicare.
The assault against seniors began with the stimulus package in February. Slipped into the bill was substantial funding for comparative effectiveness research, which is generally code for limiting care based on the patient’s age. Economists are familiar with the formula, where the cost of a treatment is divided by the number of years (called QALYs, or quality-adjusted life years) that the patient is likely to benefit. In Britain, the formula leads to denying treatments for older patients who have fewer years to benefit from care than younger patients.
When comparative effectiveness research appeared in the stimulus bill, Rep. Charles Boustany Jr., (R., La.) a heart surgeon, warned that it would lead to “denying seniors and the disabled lifesaving care.” He and Sen. Jon Kyl (R., Ariz.) proposed amendments to no avail that would have barred the federal government from using the research to eliminate treatments for the elderly or deny care based on age.
In a letter this week to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, White House budget chief Peter Orszag urged Congress to delegate its authority over Medicare to a newly created body within the executive branch. This measure is designed to circumvent the democratic process and avoid accountability to the public for cuts in benefits.
[...]
While the House bill being pushed by the president reduces access to such cures and specialists, it ensures that seniors are counseled on end-of-life options (Author’s Note: This means I will be counseled every five years on “how to kill myself.” I can tell this is unacceptable to me and my family. Why you might ask? Because in 2000 I tried to commit suicide because of ineffective care at a Vet Center, part of the VA system.), including refusing nutrition where state law allows it (pp. 425-446). In Oregon, some cancer patients are being denied care by the state that could extend their lives and instead are afforded the benefit of physician-assisted suicide instead.
What is costly is when seniors become disabled. In a 2007 Health Affairs article, researchers reported that surgeries to unclog arteries and replace worn out hips and knees have had a major impact on steadily reducing disability rates. And nondisabled seniors use only one-seventh as much health care as disabled seniors. As a result, the annual increase in per capita health spending on the elderly is less than for the rest of the population.
Nevertheless, Medicare is running out of money. The problem is the number of seniors compared with the smaller number of workers supporting the system with payroll taxes. To remedy the problem, the Congressional Budget Office has suggested inching up the eligibility age one month per year until it reaches age 70 in 2043, or asking wealthy seniors to pay more.
These are reasonable solutions—reducing access to treatments and counseling seniors about cutting life short are not. Medicare has made living to a ripe old age a good value. ObamaCare will undo that.
If you think I am the only fairly young person who will be affected you are wrong. There are other veterans who are disabled and receive services under Medicare and receive Social Security payments that are facing an assault. Not only is Obamacare wrong for Seniors but it is wrong for many veterans. This is a total assault on all Americans.
For those of you who aren’t familiar with Ted Nugent, it is a sad day for you then. Nugent is more than just a rocker, he is an American Patriot. He took time out of his busy schedule on 4/15/09 to attend the Alamo Tea Party.
It seems that Ted Nugent has some things to say about Barry O. In Ted’s own words:
Do not forget, Barry O is supposed to single-handedly repair America’s international image. Write this down: by the time we toss him out of the office he was hopelessly ill-equipped to fill, Barry O will have damaged our international image far worse than what the peanut head from Plains, Georgia had done. And we must not forget that President Carter has never met a terrorist regime he did not admire.
Imagine for a moment if you were the president of a country that is a strong ally of America. Ask yourself this question: With Barry O as president of the United States, can I really trust America to be there if I need them? Case closed. Never trust a president who, as Charles Krauthammer recently wrote, finds himself on the side of Hugo Chavez, Daniel Ortega and the Castro twins as Barry O has done in support of the ousted socialist Honduran President Zelaya. My dear old US Army drill sergeant dad told me repeatedly, “tell me who you go with and I’ll tell you what you are.” Now I get it.
[...]
Barry O gave an anti-American speech to a bunch of Christian-hating Muslims in Cairo where he was given a lukewarm reception even though he did not utter the very appropriate word “terrorist.” What a pathetic joke to not have the moxie to even say the word. Instead, Barry O has the audacity of ignorance or hate of all things American because he apologizes for America at every opportunity, which, in my opinion, is the ultimate sin against America.
You will note that Barry O has yet to give a rousing, pro-America, pro-freedom, pro-free market speech to our closest allies or even to America. Reason: Barry O does not believe that individual freedom, capitalism, and American prominence are something to be exalted and admired.(read on my friends)
Make certain that you read all of Ted Nugent’s excellent opinion piece.
One complaint that is talked about in the hallways of the Veterans Administration by veterans in the language barrier between doctors and veterans. It becomes a very emotional issue for many veterans who served in the first Gulf War. It can at times make a visit to the VA like a day on the battlefield.
Now the military is tapping these same foreign nationals to meet shortages of doctors and other health care professionals. It may meet the needs of the military but it may not meet the needs of those on the battlefields in Iraq and other places. Is this the answer to filling the military’s needs? In my opinion, it isn’t.
Yahoo News has the story via AP. And I truly believe this story somehow went mainly unnoticed by the remainder of the media. It must be highlighted because it is time we start asking questions. From the story:
The Pentagon plans to recruit more foreigners in a fresh effort to make up for chronic shortages of doctors, nurses and linguists available for wartime duty.
The Defense Department already draws from aliens living in the United States on green cards and seeking permanent residency. But under a trial program, it will now look to also recruit from pools of foreigners who’ve been living in the states on student and work visas, with refugee or political asylum status and other temporary visas.
Who is responsible? Gates, the man who doesn’t cause waves or change policies. Hmmm… not quite true. More from the article:
Defense Secretary Robert Gates has authorized the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps to recruit certain legal residents whose critical medical and language skills are “vital to the national interest,” officials said, using for the first time a law passed three years ago.
Gates’ action enables the services to start a one-year pilot program to find up to 1,000 foreigners who have lived in the states legally for at least two years. The new recruits into the armed forces would get accelerated treatment in the process toward becoming U.S. citizens in return for military service in the United States or abroad.
“The services are doing a tremendous job of recruiting quality personnel to meet our various missions,” sometimes with bonus pay and tuition for medical school, said Bill Carr, deputy undersecretary of defense for military personnel policy. But they haven’t been able to fill their need for 24,000 doctors, dentists and nurses in the Defense Department.
The Pentagon’s doctor and nurse corps remain 1,000 short of the numbers needed to treat all the military’s patients, and Carr said he hoped the program would fill the gaps.
The military’s most pressing need is for neurosurgeons and dermatologists to treat troops coming home from Iraq and Afghanistan with brain and burn injuries.
The force also lacks nurses with a broad range of specialties, Carr said.
I am certain the reason they can’t recruit the needed numbers because of the pay differential between the civilian wolrd and the military. This still doesn’t excuse the military expanding by fast tracking foreign nationals for citizenship. What kind of vetting does the military do to ensure these aren’t sleeper terrorists?
More:
At the same time, the U.S. Special Operations Command needs more people with special language and cultural skills for a war on terrorism that has taken the armed forces to more remote places across the globe.
Though the military has been looking for more Arabic speakers and others to help with the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the new program looks to recruit those proficient in some three dozen languages, including Albanian, Korean, Punjabi, Somali, Turkish, Burmese, Chinese, Czech, Malay and Swahili
There are now 29,000 non-citizens in uniform today, Carr said, with about 8,000 more enlisting every year.
He expects that among those who will be interested in the new effort are doctors with work visas who are employed at hospitals around the country, a program aimed at tackling shortages among U.S. medical professionals.
I am very uncomfortable with this “new policy”. I guess I am uncomfortable with this trend because these foreign nationals may not have the same loyalty to our country and fellow military members. How do we measure their loyalty toward our country? I don’t have the answer but remain uncomfortable with Gates policy changes.
We The People Foundation just unveiled their full page ad that includes the text of an open letter to The One. Here is more on that ad that will be featured in the Chicago Tribune next week:
Our full-page Open Letter to Mr. Obama will be published in the Chicago Tribune on both Monday, December 1, 2008 and Wednesday, December 3, 2008. It will appear in the main news section. Click here to view a copy of the final ad.
Chicago is Mr. Obama’s hometown. His transition team is operating out of the Kluczynski Federal Building in downtown Chicago. He is known to be a regular reader of the Tribune, Chicago’s principal newspaper, with a daily circulation of over a half-million readers.
The Open Letter to Mr. Obama is a formal Petition for a Redress (Remedy) for the alleged violation of the “natural born citizen” clause of the Constitution of the United States of America.
Mr. Obama is respectfully requested to direct the Hawaiian officials to provide access to his original birth certificate on December 5-7 by our team of forensic scientists, and to provide additional documentary evidence establishing his citizenship status prior to our Washington, D.C. press conference on December 8.
A First Amendment Petition to any official of the Government for Redress of a violation of the Constitution is substantially different from the garden-variety political petitions frequently received by government officials. This Petition demands it be given the highest priority for an expedited review and official Response by Mr. Obama.
As a formal “Notice of a Constitutional Violation,” the Petition naturally includes the People’s inherent Right to an official Response. As a time-sensitive, election related Petition involving the Office of the President, failure to Respond as requested would constitute an egregious breach of the public trust and confirm the certainty of a Constitutional crisis.
For the D.C. press conference the WTP Foundation has reserved the Edward R. Murrow Room at the National Press Club from 1-4 pm on Monday, December 8, 2008. We are hopeful that C-SPAN may cover what could be a pivotal, historic event.
The Petition for Redress/Open Letter to Mr. Obama is also expected to have a significant impact on the deliberations of the Electoral College as it proceeds toward selection of the U.S. President as provided for by the Constitution.
Many, many thanks to the many individuals who donated the money needed to cover the costs of publishing the Open Letter and conducting the Washington press conference.
We are now in the process of selecting the forensic scientists who would travel to Hawaii to examine Mr. Obama’s original birth certificate (assuming he responds to the Petition for Redress by directing the Hawaiian officials to provide access to the birth certificate). The budget for this task is currently estimated at $20,000. We need to raise the money quickly. Unfortunately, we are starting from zero and we have but one week before the scientists would need to be in Hawaii.
Okay folks. I know you have heard this before…give, give, give…go sofa diving (they are always good for change), break open your piggy banks and check the stash in your cookie jar (if you have one), send it to We The People Foundation so they may send scientists to examine The One’s birth certificate providing he answers the petition (personally I think he believes in that wretched narcissistic mind of his, he is above releasing any and all information about himself. The only information he wants us to read is the largely fictional “autobiography” or “autobiographies” he “wrote” and were subsequently published).
Here is the final copy of the ad:
An Open Letter
to Barack Obama:
Are you a Natural Born
Citizen of the U.S.?
Are you legally eligible to
hold the Office of President?
We The People Foundation
For Constitutional Education, Inc.
www.WeThePeopleFoundation.org
2458 Ridge Road Queensbury, NY 12804
info@GiveMeLiberty.org
December 1, 2008
Mr. Barack Obama
Barack Obama Transition Office
Kluczynski Federal Building
230 So. Dearborn St.
Chicago, Illinois 60604
Dear Mr. Obama:
Representing thousands of responsible American citizens who have also
taken an oath to defend the Constitution of the United States of America,
I am duty bound to call on you to remedy an apparent violation of the
Constitution.
Compelling evidence supports the claim that you are barred from holding
the Office of President by the “natural born citizen” clause of the U.S.
Constitution.
For instance:
• You have posted on the Internet an unsigned, forged and thoroughly
discredited, computer-generated birth form created in 2007, a form
that lacks vital information found on any original, hand signed
Certificate of Live Birth, such as hospital address, signature of
attending physician and age of mother.
• Hawaii Dept of Health will not confirm your assertion that you were born
in Hawaii.
• Legal affidavits state you were born in Kenya.
• Your grandmother is recorded on tape saying she attended your birth
in Kenya.
• U.S. Law in effect in 1961 denied U.S. citizenship to any child born
in Kenya if the father was Kenyan and the mother was not yet 19
years of age.
• In 1965, your mother legally relinquished whatever Kenyan or U.S.
citizenship she and you had by marrying an Indonesian and becoming
a naturalized Indonesian citizen.
You have repeatedly refused to provide evidence of your eligibility when
challenged to do so in a number of recent lawsuits. Instead, you have
been successful in having judges declare that they are powerless to order
you to prove your eligibility to assume the Office of President.
Incredibly, the judge in Hawaii actually said it would be an invasion of
your privacy for him to order access to your original birth certificate in
order to prove your eligibility to hold the Office of President.
Before you can legitimately exercise any of the powers of the President
you must meet all the criteria for eligibility established by the Constitution.
You are under a moral, legal, and fiduciary duty to proffer such evidence.
Should you assume the office as anyone but a bona fide natural born
citizen of the United States who has not relinquished that citizenship, you
would be inviting a national crisis that would undermine the domestic
peace and stability of the Nation. For example:
• You would always be viewed by many Americans as a
poseur – a usurper .
• As a usurper , you would be unable to take the required “Oath or
Affirmation” on January 20 without committing the crime of perjury or
false swearing, for being ineligible you cannot faithfully execute the
Office of the President of the United States.
• You would be entitled to no allegiance, obedience or support from
the People.
• The Armed Forces would be under no legal obligation to remain
obedient to you.
• No civilian in the Executive Branch would be required to obey any of
your proclamations, Executive Orders or directives, as such orders
would be legally void.
• Your appointments of Judges to the Supreme Court would be void.
• Congress would not be able to pass any needed legislation because
it would not be able to acquire the signature of a bona fide President.
• Congress would be unable to remove you, a usurper , from the Office
of the President on Impeachment, inviting certain political chaos
including a potential for armed conflicts within the General
Government or among the States and the People to effect the
removal of such a usurper .
In consideration of the escalating constitutional crisis brought on by the
total lack of evidence needed to conclusively establish your eligibility,
I am compelled to serve you with this First Amendment Petition for a
Redress of this violation of the Constitution.
With all due respect, I ask that you immediately direct the appropriate
Hawaiian officials to allow access to the vault copy of your birth
certificate by our forensic scientists on Friday, Saturday and Sunday,
December 5, 6 and 7, 2008.
In addition, I ask that you deliver the following documentary evidence to
the National Press Club in Washington DC by 10 am on December 8, 2008,
marked for my attention:
• A certified copy of your original, signed “vault” birth certificate.
• Certified copies of your reissued and sealed birth certificates in the
names Barack Hussein Obama, Barry Soetoro, Barry Obama, Barack
Dunham and Barry Dunham.
• A certified copy of your Certification of Citizenship.
• A certified copy of your Oath of Allegiance taken upon age of maturity.
• Certified copies of your admission forms for Occidental College,
Columbia University and Harvard Law School.
• Certified copies of any legal documents changing your name.
Each member of the Electoral College, who is committed to casting a vote
on December 15, 2008, has a constitutional duty to make certain you are
a natural-born citizen. As of today, there is no evidence in the public
record (nor have you provided any) that defeats the claim that you are
barred by law from assuming the Office of President because you fail the
Constitution’s eligibility requirements.
All state Electors are now on Notice that unless you provide documentary
evidence before December 15, that conclusively establishes your eligibility,
they cannot cast a vote for you without committing treason to the Constitution.
“In a government of laws, the existence of the government will be imperiled
if it fails to observe the law scrupulously. Our government is the potent,
the omnipresent teacher. For good or for ill, it teaches the whole people
by its example. Crime is contagious. If the government becomes a
lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for law; it invites every man to become
a law unto himself; it invites anarchy .” Olmstead v. U.S., 277 U.S. 438
Thank you for your understanding and cooperation in this urgent matter.
Sincerely,
Robert L. Schulz
Chairman
Here!Here! I certainly hope the one responds before he takes the oath of office, for he will certainly be viewed as a poseur. While we are at it, let’s send The One a dictionary so he can learn the true meaning of transparency, a word heard oft repeated throughout the election. Mr Obama here is the definition for your perusal:
Transparency, as used in the humanities (government as well, my emphasis), when used in a social context, implies openness, communication, and accountability. It is a metaphorical extension of the meaning a “transparent” object is one that can be seen through. Transparent procedures include open meetings, financial disclosure statements, the freedom of information legislation, budgetary review, audits, etc.
I was reading a story about Gates from a blogger who has followed his long career. His perceptions of Gates are off. Here is an example of Mike Ruppert’s insights:
From the federal bench to the FBI to CIA. He’s a manager and an order executor, a very good one. He is not a policy architect and has no aspirations in that arena. He was a judge. His life is following rules, written and unwritten. Under him, I would know that the Chain of Command was functioning effectively to all parts of the military.
“He is not a policy architect and has no aspirations in that arena.”, is patently wrong. It is quite black and white with no thought to the following information:
Integrating active duty forces with reserve forces will require policy changes not seen in the military in recent times, if ever. The change will require major overhaul and could cost jobs. More from the article:
Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates took a giant step Monday toward more tightly blending the active-duty military and reserve components into an “integrated total force,” calling for wide-ranging personnel policy changes, codifying the reserves’ homeland defense role and adequately funding oft-overlooked reserve equipment requirements.
I see only one and only one bright spot, that is the increased funding of reserve equipment. Personnel policy changes unless done correctly could cost positions as well as chaos. I have worries about the reserves’ role in homeland security. It is very important that we get answers to that role. It leaves questions. Can martial law be invoked? Will the reserves be able to hold citizens without due process?
Will they be allowed to carry guns within the borders?
What policy needs to be changed by Gates to extend the reserves role in homeland security?
The Posse Comitatus Act and the Insurrection Act substantially limit the powers of the federal government to use the military for law enforcement.
The Posse Comitatus Act is a United States federal law (18 U.S.C. § 1385) passed on June 16, 1878 after the end of Reconstruction. The Act prohibits most members of the federal uniformed services (the Army, Air Force, and State National Guard forces when such are called into federal service) from exercising nominally state law enforcement, police, or peace officer powers that maintain “law and order” on non-federal property (states and their counties and municipal divisions) in the former Confederate states.
The statute generally prohibits federal military personnel and units of the National Guard under federal authority from acting in a law enforcement capacity within the United States, except where expressly authorized by the Constitution or Congress. The Coast Guard is exempt from the Act.
Is this one of the policies Gates is changing? He can’t change it without complicity from our Congress. They will have to vote to change the law.
More from on Gates actions:
(Author’s Note: The citizens of the United States must demand answers from Congress and the Department of Defense. We need to know if the Posse Comitatus Act is or has been changed. I can’t emphasize this enough.)
In a Monday memo sent to every senior uniformed and civilian Pentagon leader and copied to three other cabinet secretaries, Gates directed the development of a new Total Force Integration Policy that recognizes the “cultural divide that exists” between the active and reserve components. “All vestiges of the cultural prejudice” that remain in law “should be removed” by Congress, he wrote.
Gates also called upon Congress to “mandate that the National Guard and Reserves have the lead role in and form the backbone of DoD operations in the homeland.”
I am repeating myself by choice. We need an accounting for these changes. We need to thoroughly research any vote concerning the Posse Comitatus Act. The president though he is the Commander In Chief can not simply change the role of the military at will. The role must be changed by Congress. Does this mean Congress has already voted on changes to the above named act?
Am I concerned? You bet I am. I spent thirteen years in the Navy, I understand the military echelon. Do I think it is a good idea to keep Gates? I can’t answer that. I am only left with questions about the status of the military and homeland defense.
In a barely noticed development, a US Army unit is now training for domestic operations under the control of US Army North, the Army service component of Northern Command. An initial news report in the Army Times newspaper last month noted that in addition to emergency response the force “may be called upon to help with civil unrest and crowd control.” The military has since claimed the force will not be used for civil unrest, but questions remain.
Read about the unit, United States Northern Command here.
Here are a few excerpts:
U.S. Air Force Gen. Gene Renuart, commander of North American Aerospace Defense Command and U.S. Northern Command, and Canadian Air Force Lt.-Gen. Marc Dumais, commander of Canada Command, have signed a Civil Assistance Plan that allows the military from one nation to support the armed forces of the other nation during a civil emergency.
“This document is a unique, bilateral military plan to align our respective national military plans to respond quickly to the other nation’s requests for military support of civil authorities,” Renuart said. “Unity of effort during bilateral support for civil support operations such as floods, forest fires, hurricanes, earthquakes and effects of a terrorist attack, in order to save lives, prevent human suffering and mitigate damage to property, is of the highest importance, and we need to be able to have forces that are flexible and adaptive to support rapid decision-making in a collaborative environment.”
“The signing of this plan is an important symbol of the already strong working relationship between Canada Command and U.S. Northern Command,” Dumais said. “Our commands were created by our respective governments to respond to the defense and security challenges of the twenty-first century, and we both realize that these and other challenges are best met through cooperation between friends.”
The plan recognizes the role of each nation’s lead federal agency for emergency preparedness, which in the United States is the Department of Homeland Security and in Canada is Public Safety Canada. The plan facilitates the military-to-military support of civil authorities once government authorities have agreed on an appropriate response.
Assistance to civil authorities such as law enforcement is expressly forbidden by the Posse Comitatus Act. This leaves one question, what is their actual role during civil unrest?
One issue we voters have forgotten about already is it was okay to cheat in the elections of 2008 in any way possible. The faux president elect, The One, The Obamessiah did it all. He cheated through thuggery, outright intimidation, and name calling throughout 2008. He was aided by the likes of the various state Democratic Parties, the Reid, Pelosi and Democratic congressional cabal and of course ACORN.
Speaking of ACORN, what has happened to all the “investigations? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. The embezzlement case hasn’t even gone very, remaining embroiled in a bitter fight in court.
The midterm elections are in two years. We will start seeing campaign activities in the next year and they will be brutal. Why? Because the politicians running for these seats know that it is okay to cheat.
They know it is okay to cheat in elections because the president-elect, The One “leads” by example.
If you think that elections will get better from here on out, you are delusional. There will be no change, only chaos in future elections. There will be rampant cheating beating the record in the 2008 elections because The One says it is “okay”, I did and now I am living in government housing, Our White House!
So “we the voters” need to be reminded that election reform including primary and caucus reform. Caucuses must go away. It only encourages cheating as The One showed us in so many states. Some of his infractions include busing illegal voters to other states like Iowa, busing illegal voters to different precincts within states and allowing underage high school students to “sign” up to vote even though would not be “18″ by November.
There should no longer be one state favored over another when it comes to who votes first. But much of this reform will require reform within the Democratic Party because they set these arbitrary dates and give amnesty for setting the primary early to different states on a whim.
Here is a video clip of the cheating in the primaries so we remember and never forget. We must unite as one under the name Jeffersonian Coalition and take back out rights as voters and citizens of the United States.
Recently I received notice of a new PUMA video titled, “Transparency: An Open Letter To Barack Obama” produced by Annie Sweetie Oakley. While I haven’t covered much PUMA news lately I do believe this video is worthy of spreading around. It does discuss many of the things that Obama has never released such as a “valid” long form birth certificate, his Harvard grades, and other things he simply refuses to show the American people. Obama is definitely far from transparent despite the many months of telling us he is….
Transparency and Accountability in government? Trust? From Obama hardly!
I truly am a Ms Placed Democrat. I am an original Bostonian and now a Kansan. I must give credit where credit is due. My daughter thought up the name. And it does fit my situation well. I was on the ground in four states for Hillary Clinton, Texas, Indiana, South Dakota and Montana. I ran the Veterans for Hillary tour through 16 cities and towns in Montana.
Where am I now? I am home after an exciting but somewhat demoralizing trip to Denver in August where I had the opportunity to meet so many fellow bloggers. I met Heidi Li of Heidi’sPotpourri, Riverdaughter, Bud White of NoQuarter, TexasHillCountry, LadyBoomer of NYC, BJ of Free Me Now and just so many others. Too numerous to list. The demoralizing part was watching the “undemocratic” and “unrealistic” roll call vote for the Democratic nomination.
I am truly misplaced because now I am crossing party lines and voting a straight Republican ticket. I am doing it less for the Republicans and more as revenger for the sexism, misogyny, and cheating in the Democratic Party. A few words of warning to the Democratic Party. Becareful for what you wish for. You are going to have to win with “The Campaign of Change”,”the new name for the Democratic Party. The leadership told the “old base” we don’t need you to win. And a good portion of the old base is doing exactly what I am doing!
Good luck with the “new base”. As Ollie North said (and I am paraphrasing here), college kids are reliably unreliable.
Stanley Kurtz visits Fox and Friends. Watch and Listen to the following video:
Once you have watched and listened to this video, go and tell five friends and have them tell five more. And fight to keep Obama and his friends out of the White House!
As a preface to Nancy’s article it might be helpful to offer a refresher for new NoQuarter readers on the deep and long-term relationship between Barak Obama and ACORN, which stands for Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now.
ACORN Housing provides mortgage loan counseling, first-time homebuyer classes, and helps clients obtain affordable mortgages through unique lending partnerships. They even set up their own lending institution as a non-profit mortgage brokerage with CitiMortgage, Bank of America, First American Title Insurance Company, and Fannie Mae to help low- and moderate-income families find safe, affordable mortgages.
This is one of the community organizing groups into which the Democrats tried to funnel billions of dollars in the first draft designed to capture the 700 billion pound gorilla. Read this and understand why that little treat was considered nearly criminal by even the casual observers.
First. Obama claimed he has no ties to “a group he did some legal work for” back in 1995. Let’s look into that claim.
In 1995, Illinois Gov. Jim Edgar balked at implementing the federal motor voter law out of concern that letting people register via postcard and blocking the state from pruning voter rolls might invite vote fraud. A young lawyer named Barak Obama, a community organizer himself, sued on behalf of ACORN and won. ACORN later invited Obama to train its staff on voter registration drives.
In 1996 Obama ran for Illinois State Senate and ACORN became his precinct organization, identifying and turning out the vote.
When Obama served on the board of the Woods Fund for Chicago, the Fund frequently gave ACORN grants to fund its agenda and voter registration activities.
In 2004 ACORN operates as Obama’s precinct organization in his run for the U.S. Senate.
In 2007 ACORN’s national political arm endorsed Obama for president, and its “nonpartisan” voter registration affiliate starts registering hundreds of thousands of voters for Obama.
Obama claims he has no ties to “a group he once did some legal work for.”
In July 2008 the Pittsburgh Tribune Review, along with NoQuarter researchers, exposes the lie by uncovering $832,598.29 that the Obama campaign funneled through a front company called Citizens Services, Inc.
ACORN, which receives partial taxpayer funding, used those funds to conduct solicitations for contributions to and raised over $800,000 for Obama in Philadelphia alone.
Where does ACORN, the political group get this money? In 2006 Project Vote hired ACORN and CSI as its highest paid contractors, paying ACORN $4,649,037 and CSI $779,016. It has also been well documented that money flows to them from various sources including from the federally chartered non-profit ACORN Housing Corporation, as you will see below.
Now, on to the article.
——————————————————————————–
The Community Reinvestment Act (CRA), with a smattering of Obama and ACORN thrown in to the mix assisted in the creation of the subprime housing saga. The saga led to the governmental take over of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
Obama tries to omit Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, confuses them and turns grey while discussing the bailout. Obama “obviously” has no idea who Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are but I digress.
Mr. James Terry recently appeared on Fox News discussing the fact that ACORN will benefit from the current bailout bill. ACORN did not respond to calls from Fox News. Mr. James Terry:
From their report:
This report focuses on the troubling record of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) and its tax-exempt offshoot, the ACORN Housing Corporation (AHC). The ACORN/AHC version of consumer advocacy has consisted of a three-decade assault on free enterprise and a history of extracting resources from financial lenders seeking abatement of ACORN’s public relations assaults. Specifically, this report examines ACORN’s impact on the housing problem. Documents provided by internal whistleblowers, cross-checked with public records and recorded events, expose hypocritical lending recommendations tied to ACORN Housing Corporation’s agreements with major banks—agreements that end up harming consumers. Media reports, combined with information provided by former ACORN employees, show that:
• ACORN leveraged the Community Reinvestment Act in order to
attack lenders’ reputations and secure financial resources for itself;
it has also endorsed loans offered by companies that fund ACORN
operations
• ACORN’s decades of lobbying and publicity seeking have contributed
to the current housing crisis by lowering lending standards
• Despite raking in a troubling 40 percent of its revenue from taxpayers
over the last three years, ACORN Housing Corporation’s actions
range from controversial to borderline illegal (This summer when Bush signed the current housing bill into law, he effectively gave ACORN and ACORN Housing Corporation a portion of upwards of $600 million dollars. There is no firewall between ACORN and AHC so the money for housing also supports the the political arm….Project Vote. Read more on that here from the Wall Street Journal.)
• AHC has worked to obtain mortgages for undocumented
workers
• AHC relies on undocumented income, “under the table” money
that may not be reported to the Internal Revenue Service
• ACORN’s “financial justice” operations attack lenders for “exotic”
loans, but AHC has recommended ten-year interest-only
loans (which deny equity to the buyer) and reverse mortgages
(which can be detrimental to senior citizens)
• AHC may have violated federal law by failing to maintain a
proper distinction between its tax-exempt housing work and
the aggressive political activities of ACORN
More About ACORN and ACORN Housing Corporation from CRL’s report:
To understand the current subprime credit mess is to glimpse a world in which a politically active organization with a non-profit housing arm reaps millions of dollars through “rent seeking” or manipulation of favorable laws. ACORN and its non-profit housing arm have taken in millions of taxpayer and corporate dollars by abusing a three-decade-old law intended to help the poor obtain housing. For decades, the activist organization known as ACORN has grabbed headlines—and cash—by attacking mortgage lenders in the name of citizens’ rights. Considerably less attention has been paid to the amount of taxpayer money that funds ACORN Housing Corporation (AHC) and to the financial rewards ACORN has amassed
The troubling thing about ACORN,
it does not claim federal tax exemption, therefore it is free to engage in politics and is not required to disclose details of its vast and varied financial operations. Their membership includes more than 350,000 families, in more than half dozen countries.
According to CRL’s report, ACORN has a business model that is repeated over and over again, each time targeting a different company or financial institution. Here is that model:
Issues—–>Target—–>Direct Actions—–>Victory——>Partnership—–>$$$$ For Organizing
This information is provided by Former ACORN Organizer and University of Georgia Professor Fred Brooks.
CRL really did their homework and was able to retrieve information on the funding ACORN receives from financial institutions through whistleblowers (former employees) and public records. Some of the whistleblowers provided CRL with internal e-mails. Here are some of those figures:
In addition to the millions of taxpayer dollars AHC has taken in, one of
the organization’s tax returns shows private donations of more than $4 million
from major banks.6 Whistleblower documents covering AHC’s revenue
sources from July 1, 2004 through June 31, 2005 included:
• ACORN (Citibank Partnership)………………………….$127,500
• ACORN (Citibank Partnership)………………………….$240,000
• ACORN (Freddie Mac)……………………………………….$35,000
• Ameriquest Mortgage…………………………………………$130,000
• Fannie Mae (for Broadband)…………………………………$20,000
• Fannie Mae FYE 2005–2006………………………………$100,000
• JP Morgan Chase 2005–2006…………………………..$1,000,000
• Bank of America 2005–2006……………………………$1,390,000
• Washington Mutual…………………………………………..$175,000
• M & T Bank…………………………………………………….$150,000
• United Way (American Dream)……………………………..$15,000
Why should banks pay without a fight? Banks according to CRL, “look at it as a cost of doing business, according to Sol Stern in “ACORN’s Nutty Regime for Cities” in the City Journal.” It seems that ACORN forces banks to see it as doing business….according to an internal statement that CRL retrieved.
ACORN does have a historical place in the current home crisis. Here is more on that, ACORN:
…has become both a leading beneficiary and an important advocate of the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA). Three decades ago politicians, spurred by activist groups, found that banks were engaging in “redlining” refusing loans in areas with high concentrations of individuals with low credit scores. Legislators passed a bill that gave community groups significant sway over bank mergers based on the banks’ record of lending to minorities and the poor. The fact that poor credit put such borrowers at higher risk for default was deemed irrelevant. ACORN and AHC have taken advantage of that 1977 bill and have aggressively argued— since at least 1991—for its continuation. Given ACORN’s reliance on AHC to funnel federal funds for “mortgage counseling,” such support is hardly surprising.
Don’t let these innocent looking people fool you, they are members of Obama’s ACORN. They are working with him in Ohio, where the Secretary of State is bamboozling you and fraudulently using the law to “Steal The Election” for one week.. The Secretary of State in Ohio is in collusion with The Campaign for Change (formerly the Democratic Party) and Obama to steal the election in swing states. The most outrageous and flagrant larceny was uncovered by a small college network, Polesta.com. Ohio allowed one week of “stealing the election”. John Gibson discusses this in a Fox News special report:
In my opinion these special volunteers are not non-partisan. They are more than likely members of ACORN. MoveOn.org and even Grassroots Campaign, Inc are assisting Obama and The Campaign for Change (formerly The Democratic Party) in stealing the election in November.
The Democratic Party is definitely not the Democratic Party anymore. I received a phone call from The Campaign for Change (formerly The Democratic Party) asking me to phone bank and help on Election Day (the election that Obama is attempting to steal from unde the America electorates nose) and I informed them no. I am voting a straight Republican Ticket.
Make A Sign….Anyone But Obama….Put it in Your Yard….Let Your Neighbors Know…Then tell five people about Obama’s underhanded tactics in places like Ohio, ask them to tell 5 people….and start a movement. We have very little time….we must share our knowledge now. Talk, talk about voter fraud. Show people this video! Talk, talk about Obama’s dangerous pals! Most important, share all you know with undecided voters and those not connected via the Internet. Just talk……and tell the story of Obama and his illegal shenanigans! The Obamas have dangerous plans for this country, your children and your grandchildren. Do not allow them near our White House.
This just in from JustSayNoDeal.
An immediate press release (and I completely agree with this action!)
For_Immediate_Release:
United States of America (Press Release) October 6, 2008 —
The Just Say No Deal Coalition vehemently
condemns the Democratic Party for forcing the
American People to fund the criminal activities
of ACORN.
With the general election less than 30 days
away, this is a national emergency. Our
government is sponsoring fraudulent and
criminal practices that implement mob-style
tactics disguised as social justice strategies.
We say, ‘enough!’ Any other private company,
not-for-profit or public entity would be shut
down immediately in light of such violations.
Voters’ rights are a cornerstone of our
Democracy. We will no longer tolerate the
hijacking of our voting system like we
witnessed the raping of America’s financial
markets by Fannie Mae (another funding
channel of ACORN).
Visit www.justsaynodeal.com/acorn.html for more information on ACORN’s ties to corruption and the current financial market meltdown.
In April, 2007, bankrate.com published an article, titled “The Subprime Mortgage Meltdown” by Holden Lewis. Here is his opening paragraph:
There’s no doubt that subprime lending opened up the possibility of homeownership to a bunch of people, and most of them are going to stay homeowners. That’s a good thing for them as individuals and for society as a whole.
He has more to say, it was a dire warning not heeded by many. Read on:
But there are going to be many people — perhaps millions — who will lose their homes as a result of wink-wink lending to gullible or fraudulent buyers, with harsh individual and national economic consequences. It’s something that many saw coming, but no one — not the industry, not the secondary market, not the regulators, or the media — did anything to prevent it.
Remember the last line of that paragraph. And listen to Obama say “Subprime Mortgages Were A Good Idea After The Meltdown Began”.
Obama was aware that these subprime mortgages were not good, or did he? He knew his “dangerous pals”, ACORN were encouraging them while protesting “predatory lending” practices. Why didn’t he use his power as a US Senator to do more to stop the practice of subprime mortgages? Could it be Raines and Johnson are financial advisers to his campaign?
See this McCain ad:
And here is another McCain ad, this time discussing Jim Johnson, another disgraced Fannie Mae official.
“Whatever money you may need for the next five years, please take it out of the stock market right now, this week. I do not believe that you should risk those assets in the stock market right now.”
While the animated Cramer is known for telling investors the best prospects for earning money on the stock market, he’s now saying retreat is the best position in the face of some of the worst financial news in decades. The bank lending default crisis that put financial firms around the country on the brink of collapse could bring “as much as a 20 percent decrease in the stock market,” Cramer predicted.
And now we are beginning to see the global effects of the meltdown.
Cramer on the global markets:
He noted that the world’s markets are nosing downward in the face of the U.S. fiscal trauma.
“One thing is certain — they are, in Europe, behind us,” Cramer told Curry. “We’ve experienced more pain than they have, we are surprised at their pain, we didn’t know how bad off they were.”
And where did this all begin, the money grabbing and grubbing CEOs of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Remember these are Obama’s advisers.
Make A Sign. It Should Say: Anybody But Obama! Then tell five friends that Obama’s advisers are disgraced money grabbing CEOs of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the original cause of the subprime mortgage meltdown. And tell them Obama’s friend and endorsee. ACORN helped as well. Tell them what Cramer said above. More than 62% of middle class America are investors and losing thier 401ks as I write.
There is little left to say. This is the best video I have seen on Obama and ACORN
We absolutely must stop this man from getting anywhere near our White House. Obama is attempting to steal the election just as he stole it in Chicago. Obama knows no other way to win accept through illegal means! Stop Obama!
who vows to change Washington by trimming wasteful spending and disclosing special-interest requests, wrote the Bush administration last year to seek a multimillion-dollar federal grant for a Chicago housing project that is behind schedule and whose development team includes a longtime political supporter.
More from The Times:
Mr. Obama’s letter, however, was never disclosed publicly. In fact, the letter was ghostwritten for him by a consultant for the Chicago Housing Authority, which wanted the money – a practice ethics watchdogs have frequently criticized.
Obama, the agent of change apparently appears to be anything but the agent of change. If he gets to the White House, it is my opinion that it will be Washington DC games as usual. And The Times agrees as do watchdog groups.
The Bush administration obliged Mr. Obama’s request, awarding a $20 million competitive grant last month from the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). It called the project a “shining example” of urban revitalization. The Washington Times learned of the letter from Republican operatives.
As Mr. Obama campaigns for president as an agent of change who promises to clean up Washington’s money game, his role in the Stateway project raises questions about the appearance of a conflict of interest and whether he has been participating in the very system he criticizes, watchdogs say.
Obama says it is a good project because it will replace public housing that is being razed. And why is it being razed? Because Obama sat in Chicago helping Rezko get contracts to rehab and manage public housing. Let’s see what that public housing looks like:
And another video, Obama’s Former Chicago District In Ruins:
Even more disturbing the undisclosed letter is connected to Allison S. Davis, Obama’s old boss. Read more:
But complicating the picture, one of developers for the Stateway Project is a firm headed by Allison S. Davis, one of Mr. Obama’s early mentors and a longtime political supporter. A founding partner at the firm where Mr. Obama practiced law, Mr. Davis and his family have given the senator from Illinois tens of thousands of dollars in political contributions over the years.
What is Obama’s explanation? “i didn’t know Davis was involved. The Times:
Aides to Mr. Obama said he did not know of Mr. Davis’ involvement in the Stateway project when he sent the letter. They noted that none of the HUD money will flow to Mr. Davis or his business. They also said other lawmakers – including fellow Illinois Democrats Sen. Richard J. Durbin and Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley – sent similar letters to HUD.
None of the letters were written by the elected officials but it still gives an air of a conflict of interest. In Obama’s case the conflict of interest appears very evident.. The watchdog groups have quite a bit to say about this subject:
Though Mr. Obama’s office said he didn’t know of Mr. Davis’ role, ethics watchdogs said he left himself open to creating the appearance of a conflict of interest, a situation senators are encouraged to avoid in their code of ethics.
Whenever a politician seeks help for a project in which supporters are involved, it can “spawn all kinds of traps and minefields,” said Leslie Paige, a spokeswoman for the nonpartisan Citizens Against Government Waste, an advocacy group.
“The appearance of a conflict of interest is almost as bad as a conflict of interest,” she said.
How exactly does HUD decide who gets money for housing projects? Apparently with these positive letters….
James Brooks, the consultant who drafted Mr. Obama’s letter, said such letters of support are seen as a “positive sign” by HUD when it doles out grants, though he added that the letters are not in themselves deciding factors.
“This isn’t a political process,” he said. “I might add that I wrote those letters myself. They didn’t originate from the mayor’s office or either of the senators’ offices,” Mr. Brooks said in an e-mail. “The final signed letters that are included in the application were changed very little from the drafts that I wrote.”
It appears as though it is a political process to me. If it wasn’t, why all the positive letters from politicians, especially Obama?
And what does the Chicago Housing Authority say about the practice of using political influence? It is “commonplace”! The Times had this to say in its article:
The Chicago Housing Authority’s managing director of development, William Little, called the practice “commonplace.”
“When we or other city agencies request the support of any member of our congressional or state delegation, the mayor or an alderman, we speak with them or their staff about the nature of and reasons for the request,” he said.
“If they agree that the request serves a compelling public purpose and are supportive we then prepare and submit the support letter for their and their staff’s review and approval. … The official and their staff are of course free to edit the letter as they wish.”
There remains a question for Obama….How much did he know about who was part of Stateway Associates LLC?
“I’m not sure he or his staff would need to review any particular funding application in any detail to understand what we were trying to accomplish with the [grant] application,” Mr. Little said.
“In this instance, Senator Obama and Senator Durbin demonstrated their support of the Chicago Housing Authority´s mission and effort to provide badly needed, safe, sanitary, affordable housing by supporting our request for funding,” he said.
If Mr. Obama or his staff had learned more about the project, it’s likely they would also have known of Mr. Davis’ involvement, since Mr. Davis’ company, the Davis Group, is one of four in the Stateway Associates LLC development partnership, according to the city housing authority’s Web site.
If it isn’t bad enough Obama’s old boss, Davis is involved so is Valerie Jarrett, Obama Campaign aide, with connections to Michelle Obama as well. Read more:
In his letter, Mr. Obama said the first phase of construction at the Stateway site “has proven successful thus far in contributing to the revitalization of the surrounding community.” He also cited nearby businesses, such as a Starbucks and a FedEx Kinkos.
According to a Tribune report on the Stateway project last year, those businesses sit on property tied to Mr. Davis and his family.
Obama aides said Mr. Obama created no conflict of interest in sending the letter. They said, and city housing authorities confirmed, that HUD grant money won’t go to Mr. Davis or his company.
“The request was made with the consultation of city officials, not the developers, and since the overall budget remains the same, the developers will not gain any financial benefit from the grant,” Mr. LaBolt said.
Obama campaign aide Valerie Jarrett also has ties to the project. She is chief executive of the Habitat Co., the federally court-appointed receiver in charge of overseeing several housing authority redevelopment efforts in Chicago, including Stateway. She is not a developer in the project.
Neither Mr. Davis nor Miss Jarrett returned e-mail or phone messages. An assistant for Miss Jarrett said she was unavailable for comment, but added, “She never spoke with Barack about this matter.”
Draw your own conclusion, but for me it brings into question whether there is a conflict of interest. I believe there is a conflict of interest. So much for Sen Hopey-Changey Obama. If he gets in our White House it will be business as usual in Washington, DC with no checks or balances.
“More Bogus Obama Donors” Surface according to CBS News. Read more about that report here. This is on the heels of the bogus donors reported yesterday in the , “RNC to File FEC Complaint on Obama Fundraising Practices”. That article can be accessed at this Washington Post link. Obama has more “bogus” donors. More from CBS:
CBS News has learned that two donors to the Obama campaign that gave a total of $7,722 appear to have made their contributions under fake names that look like they were written by a mouse running across a keyboard: Dahsudhu Hdusahfd of Df, Hawaii with the following employer CZXVC/ZXVZXV and Uadhshgu Hduadh listed as living in Dhff, Florida listed their employer as DASADA/SAFASF.
More of Obama’s transparency. I am led to ask this question, what is Obama trying to hide with bogus names, residences and employers on his donor list? More from “Bogus Obama Donors”:
CBS News did not find any records of these last names, towns or employers anywhere else. Newsweek reported two questionable Obama donors over the weekend named “Doodad Pro” and “Good Will”. ( This was added by authir to enable readers to do more research on Obama and his bogus donors. Read more on Doodad Pro and Goodwill from Ken Timmerman at Newsmax.
Contributions from the two donors Hdusahfd and Hduadh were made on the same day starting on July 16, 2008. Federal Election Commission (FEC) records show the campaign began refunding the donations as early as August 6, 2008.
Despite numerous refunds from the Obama campaign, Hdusahfd still has a record of giving a total of $7500 to Obama which is well over the legal limit for the primary and general election of $4600.the primary and general election of $4600. Hduadh gave $14,200 but the Obama campaign returned all but $222.00.
And what is Obama saying?
The Obama campaign says “out of an abundance of caution” all of these donations are in the process of being returned.
Where have we heard that before? …. The Gaza Strip Brothers, Good Will and Doodad Pro. Read more »
This is Hannity’s finest hour ever. I have never been a fan of Hannity though I liked Colmes. The odd thing is I now have much more respect for Hannity and truly dislike Colmes.
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6
Obama is so aligned with questionable characters that we have to question who Obama really is. I am certain that Obama is dangerous. And I know we have no idea who he really is.
I am going to reprint McCain’s words from Albuquerque, NM courtesy of Real Clear Politics. McCain’s speech contains some information in it that we all must pay close attention to. When we know it we must do direct voter contact….contact friends, neighbors and even family. Here is McCain’s speech:
October 06, 2008
McCain Attacks Obama in Albuquerque Speech
John McCain
Albuquerque, New Mexico
As Prepared for Delivery
In less than a month, the American people will make a choice on where they want this country to go, and who they trust to lead us in a time of war and economic crisis. The time for debating and electioneering is drawing to a close. Soon it will be the time for choosing.
Today we have seen a reminder of the importance of that choice. The action Congress took last week to address our financial crisis was a tourniquet, but not a permanent solution. Today we are seeing the stock market fall, and the credit crisis spread to other parts of the world. Our economy is still hurting – working families are worried about the price of groceries, the price of gas, keeping their jobs and paying their mortgage – further action is needed. We need to restore confidence in our economy and in our government.
Washington is still on the wrong track and we still need change. The status quo is not on the ballot. We are going to see change in Washington. The question is: in what direction will we go? Will our country be a better place under the leadership of the next president – a more secure, prosperous, and just society? Will you be better off, in the jobs you hold now and in the opportunities you hope for? Will your sons and daughters grow up in the kind of country you wish for them, rising in the world and finding in their own lives the best of America? And which candidate’s experience – in government and in life – makes him a more reliable leader for our country and commander in chief for our troops? Who is ready to lead? In a time of trouble and danger for our country, who will put our country first?
I set out on my own campaign for president many months ago. I promised at the beginning to be straight with the American people, knowing that even those who don’t agree with me on everything would expect at least that much. I didn’t just show up out of nowhere, after all – America knows me. You know my strengths and my faults. You know my story and my convictions. And though familiarity in politics can be both helpful to a candidate, or not so helpful, it does at least fill out the picture and answer the essential questions. You need to know who you’re putting in the White House – where the candidate came from and what he or she believes. And you need to know now, before it is time to choose.
In 21 months, during hundreds of speeches, town halls and debates, I have kept my promise to level with you about my plans to reform Washington and get this country moving again. As a senator, I’ve seen the corrupt ways of Washington in wasteful spending and other abuses of power, and as president I’m going to end them – whatever it takes. I will propose and sign into law reforms to bring tax relief to the middle class and help to businesses so they can create jobs. I will get the rising cost of food and gas under control. I will help families keep their home, and help students struggling to pay for college. I will make health care more accessible and affordable. I will impose a spending freeze on all but the most vital functions of government. I will review every agency of the federal government, improve those that need to be improved and eliminate those that aren’t working for the American people. I will confront th e ten trillion-dollar debt that the federal government has run up, and balance the federal budget by the end of my term in office. Read more »
For sometime now every time I have heard Obama say he will cut taxes for the middle class I have been flashing back to President Bill Clinton’s eight years in the White House. We didn’t exactly get a tax cut during his tenure. Now someone else is remembering. In the Wall Street Journal today, as listed on Memorandum, William Mc Gurn remembers too. His article “About That Middle-Class Tax Cut . . .
Remember the last time a charismatic Democrat made such a promise?” discusses just that subject. (This article is listed at Memeorandum.)
More from McGurn:
“It’s like déjà vu all over again.”
Read on and remember those days Obama wanted us to forget during the primaries. And I believe this why Obama wanted us to forget. He constantly says there will be no tax increase for the middle class, Clinton promised the same thing. Yet we ended up with just that.
McGurn on Clinton’s “middle class tax cuts”:
The Clinton years hold some good lessons on both these scores. Back when Mr. Clinton was campaigning for president in 1992, he made a pretty direct pitch: Raise taxes on people making more than $200,000, and use those revenues to fund tax relief for the “forgotten middle class.”
John McCain needs to remind the American people about the cost of an Obama presidency with no checks and balances, ie: a Democratic Congress with a lousy approval rating. Read the author’s thoughts:
As John McCain heads into the second round of presidential debates tonight, Yogi Berra’s words come to mind. Mr. McCain could do worse than remind the middle class what happened to them the last time a charismatic Democratic candidate promised them a tax cut. While he’s at it, he might also remind them how much more expensive it will be to send Barack Obama to the White House at a time when his fellow Democrats will have a majority in both houses of Congress.
McGurn reminds us it took no time at all for Clinton to start backtracking on his promises.
In an October presidential debate, then-Gov. Clinton laid out the marginal-rate increase he wanted and some of his plans for the revenue that would be brought in. He followed with a pledge:
“Now, I’ll tell you this,” he said. “I will not raise taxes on the middle class to pay for these programs. If the money does not come in there to pay for these programs, we will cut other government spending, or we will slow down the phase-in of the programs.”
Mr. Clinton, of course, won that election. And as the inauguration approached, he began backtracking from his promise. At a Jan. 14, 1993, press conference in New Hampshire, he claimed that it was the media that had played up a middle-class tax cut, not him. A month later, he announced his actual plan before a joint session of Congress.
Just in from Fox News, “ACORN Vegas Office Raided in Voter Fraud Investigation”. It is about time. I had a second sense about ACORN in July. My feeling about this group was spot on. And the best thing is because of my expose at NoQuarter, “ACORN IV: Obama, ACORN, Citizen’s Services Inc: False FEC Filings”, we all know Obama has been paying them this year. I exposed these filings prior to the Pittsburgh Tribune Review.
More from Fox News on the ACORN raid:
Nevada state authorities seized records and computers Tuesday from the Las Vegas office of an organization that tries to get low-income people registered to vote, after fielding complaints of voter fraud.
Bob Walsh, spokesman for the Nevada secretary of state’s office, told FOXNews.com the raid was prompted by ongoing complaints about “erroneous” registration information being submitted by the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, also called ACORN.
And this is more from that raid and Fox News:
The group was submitting the information through a voter sign-up drive known as Project Vote.
“Some of them used nonexistent names, some of them used false addresses and some of them were duplicates of previously filed applications,” Walsh said, describing the complaints, which largely came from the registrar in Clark County, Nev. He said some registrations used the names of Dallas Cowboys football players.
Walsh said agents from both the secretary of state’s office and Nevada attorney general’s office conducted the raid, and “took a bunch of stuff.”
I was just over visiting NoQuarter. According to Larry, Matthew has a “breaking story” about a “socialist party” you have to sign a pledge with. The pledge states you are required to use them in your campaign. I have known about this pledge and party since July. I uncovered the tie in Obama’s ACORN.
I am aware of one socialist party with two different names but one of which was assimilated by ACORN and the other established by ACORN. The first of these two parties is “New Party” and the second of the parties is “Working Families Party”.
The first socialist party is centered in Chicago and the second in New York State.
In Chicago, The New Party placed at least one candidate onto the Board of Aldermen. I exposed this in my first article, Obama’s ACORN. The goal of this party is to place members on city councils and even the presidency to destroy the country/system as we know it from within. Make no mistake Obama knows who and what this party is about. Read about Obama and New Party here at Red State. An excerpt from Red State in their piece titled, “Obama Sought Endorsement of Marxist Third Party in 1996″:
The New Party’s modus operandi included the political strategy of “electoral fusion,” where it would nominate, for various political offices, candidates from other parties (usually Democrats), thereby enabling each of those candidates to occupy more than one ballot line in the voting booth. By so doing, the New Party often was able to influence candidates’ platforms. (Fusion of this type is permitted in seven states — Connecticut, Delaware, Idaho, Mississippi, New York, South Carolina, and Vermont — but is common only in New York.) Read more about The New Party here from their own website:
Though Illinois was not one of the states that permitted electoral fusion, in 1995 Barack Obama nonetheless sought the New Party’s endorsement for his 1996 state senate run. He was successful in obtaining that endorsement, and he used a number of New Party volunteers as campaign workers.
In 1996, three of the four candidates endorsed by the New Party won their electoral primaries. The three victors included Barack Obama (in the 13th State Senate District), Danny Davis (in the 7th Congressional District), and Patricia Martin, who won the race for Judge in the 7th Subcircuit Court. All four candidates attended an April 11, 1996 New Party membership meeting to express their gratitude for the party’s support.
From The Real Barack Obama in its article, “Carl Davidson Doth Protest Too Much” highlights a relationship between Carl Davidson and Obama. Davidson is the former president of the SDS, (this is important later in the article). Read on:
Katz and former Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) president Carl Davidson, “two perennially engaged ’60s veterans and ex-SDS members”, Jeff Epton wrote December 15, 2003, in In These Times, were “key organizers” of the October 2, 2002, anti-war demonstration. Originating as Chicagoans Against War with Iraq (CAWI), by December 2003 CAWI had morphed into Chicagoans Against War and Injustice. Davidson explained, “as the war transformed from invasion to occupation, CAWI activists managed to avoid splits over sectarian and strategic differences, and committed to stay together and move from ‘protest to politics’.”
In 2005, Katz and Davidson co-authored Stopping War, Seeking Justice. Davidson is “now a figure in the Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism, an offshoot of the old Moscow-controlled CPUSA,” Cliff Kincaid wrote February 18, 2008, for Accuracy in Media.
Davidson is also an Obama supporter, now heading up a group called Progressives for Obama. On his personal blog Keep On Keepin’ On, Davidson recently defended Sen. Obama’s comments about small town people being bitter.
And why is this important? Davidson and Bernadine Dohrn were both members of the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS). From Wikipedia, an excerpt of the SDS history:
In the spring of 1968, National SDS activists led an effort on the campuses called “Ten Days of Resistance” and local chapters cooperated with the Student Mobilization Committee in rallies, marches, sit-ins and teach-ins, which culminated in a one-day strike on April 26. About a million students stayed away from classes that day, the largest student strike in the history of the United States. It was largely ignored by the New York City-based national media, which were intensely focused on the student shutdown of Columbia University in New York, led by an inter-racial alliance of Columbia SDS chapter activists and Student Afro Society activists. As a result of the mass media publicity given to Columbia SDS activists such as Columbia SDS chairperson Mark Rudd during the Columbia Student Revolt, the organization was put on the map politically and “SDS” became a household name in the United States for a few years. Membership in SDS chapters around the United States increased dramatically during the 1968-69 academic year.
SDS members from Austin, Texas participated in a mass demonstration in San Antonio, Texas in April 1969 at the “Kings River Parade”. San Antonio SNCC members called the demonstration to protest the killing of Bobby Joe Phillips by San Antonio Police Officers.
In the summer of 1969, the ninth SDS national convention was held at the Chicago Coliseum with some 2000 people attending. Many factions of the movement were actually present, and set up their literature tables all around the edges of the cavernous hall. The Young Socialist Alliance, Wobblies, Spartacists, Marxists and Maoists of various sorts, all together with various law-enforcement spies and informers contributed to the air of impending expectations.
Each of the delegates were given the convention issue of New Left Notes, which contained a manifesto, “You don’t need a Weatherman to know which way the wind blows.” This manifesto had been first presented at the Spring, 1969, SDS National Council Meeting in Austin, Texas. The document had been written by an eleven-member committee that included Mark Rudd, Bernardine Dohrn and John Jacobs, and represented the position of the Revolutionary Youth Movement (RYM) wing of SDS, most of which subsequently turned into the Weather Underground Organization. The New Left Notes issue distributed at the convention was full of the language of the Old Left of the thirties; and was thus impenetrable and irrelevant to the majority of SDSers.
The convention quickly fell into disarray as the PL Worker Student Alliance faction, which was about evenly divided with the Revolutionary Youth Movement forces at the convention, moved to exert its power over SDS as a whole. When the Black Panther representatives attacked PL but at the same time proved itself inclined towards sexism by advocating “pussy power,” the entire convention fell into something approaching chaos, or, worse, farce.
The RYM and the National Office faction, led by Bernardine Dohrn, voted by about 500 to 100 to expel the PL, and then walked out of the conference hall with that 500. By the next day there were two SDS organizations, neither of them recognizable to an older SDSer, nor to the bulk of the members back on the campuses. In the Fall of 1969 many of the SDS chapters also split up or disintegrated. The Weatherman faction evolved into a small underground organization that first took to street confrontations and then to a bombing campaign. There were no more national conventions. SDS was fully defunct by 1972. On June 26, 1972, the U.S. Supreme Court gave a unanimous opinion, in the case Healy v. James, stating that members of the SDS had been unconstitutionally deprived of their First Amendment right to freedom of assembly when a group was denied permission to form on the campus of Central Connecticut State College in New Britain, Connecticut.
University of Tennessee student, David C. Kernell, son of Tennessee Democratic lawmaker Mike Kernell has been indicted by a federal grand jury. KnoxNews.com has more on that indictment:
David C. Kernell, 20, was indicted by a federal grand jury in Knoxville for intentionally accessing without authorization the e-mail account of Palin, the governor of Alaska and Sen. John McCain’s running mate, according to U.S. Attorney James R. Dedrick.
Kernell is facing arraignment this morning in front of U.S. Magistrate Judge C. Clifford Shirley. He is being charged with a single- count indictment. More:
The single-count indictment, returned Tuesday and unsealed today, alleges that on approximately Sept. 16, 2008, Kernell, obtained unauthorized access to Palin’s personal e-mail account by allegedly resetting the account password.
More on the indictment:
According to the indictment, after answering a series of security questions that allowed him to reset the password and gain access to the e-mail account, Kernell allegedly read the contents of the account and made screenshots of the e-mail directory, e-mail content and other personal information.
According to the indictment, Kernell posted screenshots of the e-mail and other personal information to a public Web site. Kernell also allegedly posted the new e-mail account password, thus providing access to the account by others.
He faces some stiff penalties. Read about them:
. If convicted, Kernell faces a maximum of five years in prison, a $250,000 fine and a three-year term of supervised releasel date has not been set.
This kid nearly got away with hacking Sarah Palin’s Yahoo account when the first federal grand jury in ended on September 23 rd. What was that first grand jury thinking? Well thank heavens this econd jury actually did its job and indicted this young man. Invasion of someone’s privacy is morally wrong as well as wrong under the law. I hope his punishment is stiff, as it should be.
What did I find in my debate roundup find this morning? The same old rhetoric! At the risk of sounding ancient, the article titles look like a broken record:
And you have to love this one from CNN (the news station that has bet its reputation on Obama):
CNN Poll: Obama won the night
Those were all a let down so I visited more fair and balanced sites, not Fox News, they gave nothing to McCain last night in their post-debate, debate. I thought it was time to look at one credible person this morning…and that is Ed Morrissey at HotAir.
Ed Morrissey in his article, “Did soft bias again affect the debate?” over at Hot Air said this:
Last night, I wrote that Tom Brokaw did a credible job as moderator and showed no obvious bias during the debate. Indeed, the one time when Brokaw enforced the no-response rule came when he shut down Barack Obama, much to Obama’s obvious frustration. But as with Gwen Ifill, complaints about a more subtle bias in the debate have arisen in the choice of questions Brokaw offered.
More from Ed Morrissey (note: I agree with him.):
In fact, there are two complaints being heard about Brokaw’s performance. The less-substantive gripe is that Brokaw asked too many of his own questions, supposedly making a mockery of the town-hall format. That format died when everyone agreed to have Brokaw and his team vet the questions and decide which would be asked. A real town hall forum uses spontaneity for its energy. All we got last night were Brokaw’s chosen questions, delivered by his selected writers. Brokaw just outsourced his writing staff. The union should file a complaint of its own.
That is exactly what I noticed. There was no spontaneity like in other town hall formats, a format I prefer myself. In REAL townhall formats the whole candidate is seen because they are not rehearsed. Last night looked like a dress rehearsal for 15 round boxing match where no one lands a jab. A literal draw, though McCain’s mortgage bailout was that one time that he shone. Once again the questions seemed elicit stump speech answers.
Morrissey wants to know where the following issues fall into the debate since it seems they are missing from the question roles:
The question of questions is a stronger accusation. Like Ifill, Brokaw managed to avoid the following topics:
Abortion
Gun control
Judicial nominations
Immigration
I don’t think Brokaw managed to avoid these issues, he deliberately avoided these issues. Well maybe that assertion is a little strong but that is what I believe. More from Hot Air:
With the current financial crisis, an emphasis on economics was expected. Brokaw did ask about entitlement reform, which hasn’t gotten nearly enough attention. However, the topics above have driven presidential politics for decades and have single-issue constituencies that matter in elections. For the second straight debate, Americans didn’t hear candidate views on any of them.
Does that oversight help Barack Obama? On the first topic, most definitely. It would have provided an opportunity for McCain to hammer Obama for his opposition to the Illinois version of the Born Alive Infant Protection Act and explain to a national audience how Obama acted to protect infanticide. Gun control would have allowed McCain to challenge the Con Law expert on why he couldn’t take a stand on the Second Amendment before Heller. Judicial nominations would have spoken to the base in both parties, and on immigration, little daylight exists between the two candidates.
I’d call the latter two topics a draw, but McCain got hurt by not getting a question on the first two. Brokaw made the decision on questions, and he has to take responsibility for his choices. The lack of queries on these perennially hot topics should raise a few eyebrows. Will the American public get a chance to hear the candidates answer on them in the third and final debate?
Ditto, Ed. Will we get substantative questions on those issues in the next debate? I would love to hear Obama say “that’s above my paygrade” again and John McCain say “life begins at conception”.
I thought I would give a hand to Purple People Vote, and keep reminding the voters out there that “Obama was Ayers Money Man”. From Purple:
Some may wonder why bring up William Ayers now? Hasn’t this already been addressed? No, it hasn’t. Last week Stanley Kurtz of the National Review wrote an article entitled Obama’s Challenge that details Senator Obama’s connection to William Ayers as much more than a passing aquaintance. Obama was essentially William Ayer’s money man on his foundation Chicago Annenberg Foundation. The full article is definitely worth a read, and below are excerpts:
The partnership between Ayers and Obama is about much more than the number of occasions on which the two were recorded together in the same room. As CAC board chair, Obama was essentially authorizing the funding of Ayers’s own educational projects, and the projects of Ayers’s radical allies. And especially in CAC’s first year, Ayers was largely in charge of the process. One of CAC’s own evaluations notes that during 1995, CAC was a “Founder-Led Foundation.” That is, Ayers was not merely an ex officio board member that year, but as the key founder and guiding spirit of CAC, he was effectively running the show…
…So when CAC’s own evaluators call 1995 the period of the “Founder-Led Foundation,” they are essentially saying that, in 1995, Ayers was the most powerful individual at CAC. The Obama campaign treats that suggestion as “absurd,” yet it is effectively made by CAC’s own evaluators. This needs to be kept in mind when considering the Obama campaign’s minimization of the Ayers-Obama connection that year…
……While the appearance of self-dealing receded after CAC’s first year, the reality may still have been in place. Evaluators, both internal and external, have criticized CAC for over-committing its funds in 1995, and also for doing far too little to demand accountability from grant recipients, very much including the initial batch. Many of the initial grantees continued to receive funds for years. Evaluators consistently note the lack of flexibility in grants, and complain that the huge 1995 commitments, with relatively few changes in follow-on years, significantly undercut CAC’s impact and effectiveness…
…The Chicago Annenberg Challenge stands as Barack Obama’s most important executive experience to date. By its own account, CAC was a largely a failure. And a series of critical evaluations point to reasons for that failure, including a poor strategy, to which the foundation over-committed in 1995, and over-reliance on community organizers with insufficient education expertise. The failure of CAC thus raises entirely legitimate questions, both about Obama’s competence, his alliances with radical community organizers, and about Ayers’s continuing influence over CAC and its board, headed by Obama. Above all, by continuing to fund Ayers’s personal projects, and those of his political-educational allies, Obama was lending moral and material support to Ayers’s profoundly radical efforts. Ayers’s terrorist history aside, that makes the Ayers-Obama relationship a perfectly legitimate issue in this campaign.
You’ll want to double-check the logo at the bottom left corner during this report. It really is CNN and Anderson Cooper fact-checking Barack Obama’s claims to have barely known William Ayers — and calling it dishonest. Stanley Kurtz even gets to make an appearance on a network other than Fox for this report (via Dirty Harry’s Place)
:
More from Hot Air:
Drew Griffin runs down most of the salient points raised by people like Kurtz, David Freddoso, Jerome Corsi, and others. Obama’s admission in a debate that he briefly served on “a board” with Ayers with little contact gets shot down. CNN followed up on Kurtz’ work with the Chicago Annenberg Challenge and debunks that notion. They also — amazingly — report on the nature of the grants made by the CAC while Obama ran it to Ayers’ favored schools with radical agendas.
Griffin also tells a somewhat nonplussed Cooper that Obama has lied about his “coming out party” at the home of William Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn in 1995. Obama has said that Alice Palmer arranged the fundraiser and the venue, but Griffin spoke to two people who attended the event, who claim Obama lied. Palmer had nothing to do with that event outside of being invited to it. Obama and Ayers planned the event themselves.
Obama lies again and again about his connections to William Ayers. He spent years working with and for Ayers. He supported Ayer’s causes. I know it is unbelievable, but even someone at CNN isn’t buying his lies any longer. Obama can no longer hide behind his mask of lies, the blogs and MSM are slowly chipping away at it.
This video absolutely is devastating. It is one of the best I have seen to date. This video is more complete than any others I have watched since July. Listen to this video from the ACORN National Convention:
And listen to these ACORN workers saying they are going to beat down Senator John McCain:
The ACORN people can say they will beat McCain down but DNC Reform brings him up. The DNC Reform endorses McCain. Watch this video:
As for me, I endorsed him a long time ago. I am a member of Citizens for McCain. Veterans for McCain and Women for McCain. In my opinion the McCain/Palin ticket is the only one reaching out to all Americans. John McCain embraced Hillary’s idea for an HOLC last night in that debate and today Obama says it will never work. Why won’t it work Obama? the backbone of it is written into the bailout bill and McCain for one knows this.
Read about the mortgage plan McCain knows is in place here at Gina Cobb. She has the best explanation yet.
Here is an excerpt:
But McCain and others have a better idea. The feds could go to the homeowner and offer to discharge their current mortgage completely, clear it off. The homeowner could then get a new mortgage with a higher interest rate, but a smaller principal. The idea is to make the monthly payments more affordable to the homeowner. The feds can actually give homeowners a pretty good deal, because they bought the mortgage at a deep discount.
The new mortgage will cost the homeowner less per month, and it will be fully secured by the house. The homeowner will be able to make the payments, and they will want to stay in the house because the can’t get cheaper housing elsewhere.
Now the feds own a fully performing mortgage that they can sell to any investor, because it’s a fully-secured, well-performing mortgage. They could get 80 to 100 cents on the a dollar for that mortgage! Everyone wins.
Well McCain can stop the bleeding with this plan plus make money for everyone. Obama doesn’t want to save anyone’s home.
Well Senator Claire McCaskill should be quite proud. ACORN is alive and registering voters fraudulently in Missouri again. The first case of voter fraud in Missouri occurred in 2006 and was a larger part of McCaskill’s run for the Senate. Now there are more reports of voter fraud in Missouri from YahooNews.
What makes this case worse? The fraudulent registration cards were dropped on Missouri officials on the last day to register to vote in the State of Missouri. There is more from Missouri officials in the story.
Officials in Missouri, a hard-fought jewel in the presidential race, are sifting through possibly hundreds of questionable or duplicate voter-registration forms submitted by an advocacy group that has been accused of election fraud in other states.
Charlene Davis, co-director of the election board in Jackson County, where Kansas City is, said the fraudulent registration forms came from the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, or ACORN. She said they were bogging down work Wednesday, the final day Missourians could register to vote.
“I don’t even know the entire scope of it because registrations are coming in so heavy,” Davis said. “We have identified about 100 duplicates, and probably 280 addresses that don’t exist, people who have driver’s license numbers that won’t verify or Social Security numbers that won’t verify. Some have no address at all.”
ACORN has a new explanation. We didn”t do it. We haven’t been registering anyone in Kansas City since whenever:
Jess Ordower, Midwest director of ACORN, said his group hasn’t done any registrations in Kansas City since late August. He said he was told three weeks ago by election officials that there were only about 135 questionable cards — 85 of them duplicates.
“They keep telling different people different things,” he said. “They gave us a list of 130, then told someone else it was 1,000.”
ACORN has little or no reliability at this point with anyone. And they shouldn’t have with any election officials. Read more:
FBI spokeswoman Bridget Patton said the agency has been in contact with elections officials about potential voter fraud and plans to investigate.
“It’s a matter we take very seriously,” Patton said. “It is against the law to register someone to vote who does not fall within the parameters to vote, or to put someone on there falsely.”
TheBlog at the Weekly Standard covered ACORN in the following story, Obama GOTV Group and Voter Fraud. This time it involves Cuyahoga County in Ohio, where ACORN is suspected of voter fraud. This is what they have to say:
Jim Geraghty points to a story in the Cleveland Plain Dealer about the voter-registration group ACORN, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now. It seems that in the process of soliciting, collecting, reviewing and turning in registration applications, it really can’t do much about fraud:
A national voter-registration group admitted to Cuyahoga County election officials Tuesday that it cannot eliminate fraud from its operation.
The group blamed inefficiency and lack of resources for problems such as being unable to spot duplicate voter-registration cards or cards that may have been filled out by workers to make quotas.
The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, or ACORN, has turned in at least 65,000 cards to the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections in the last year. The board has investigated potentially fraudulent cards since August.
The group has faced similar inquiries in other large Ohio counties. And Nevada state authorities recently raided ACORN’s Las Vegas headquarters searching for evidence of fraud, according to the Associated Press.
…Cuyahoga election workers flagged about 50 names on suspicious cards. The cards were to register the same names, raising the possibility that canvassers shared information when trying to make quotas.
…Kris Harsh, ACORN’s head Cleveland organizer, blamed the elections board for not scrutinizing ACORN’s suspicious cards. He said the group can’t be expected to catch everything.
“None of us have ever achieved perfection,” Harsh said.
Read the rest of the story about Obama and ACORN at The Weekly Standard here.
I get it ACORN isn’t perfect but why do they give the appearance of purposefully committing fraud? There are accusations of fraud against ACORN in the following states: Nevada, North Carolina, Missouri, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, Virginia and Connecticut. I suspect they are operating in Kansas as well under the idea of encouraging FELONS to register to vote…..they are not allowed to register to vote unless they complete probation or parole. If they sign the form in Kansas it can tack another 17 months onto their sentence. No one is prosecuting though. That makes a total of 9 possibly 10 states. ACORN must be knee capped and investigated by the Department of Justice, NOW, not after November 4th when it is too late.
USA Today published a piece on the Nevada ACORN inquiry yesterday. It outlined the fact that the inquiry is headed by two Democrats.”
the Nevada authorities spearheading the investigation, (Secretary of State Ross) Miller and Attorney General Catherine Cortez Masto, are both Democrats.”
As ACORN appears to be anything but non-partisan since it endorsed Obama for president, I have to question the impartiality of the two politicians overseeing the investigation. I hope they will fulfill the positions they were elected to do, but still there is a remaining fear that they will be anythig but non-partisan. In recent days we have seen the Democratic Secretary of State in Ohio appear anything but non-partisan.
Apparently the Democrats don’t need to be non-partisan this year. It is the norm to cheat (as they did in the caucus states), use an organization like ACORN to commit voter fraud, and of course there is the rampant lies told by “The One”. More on the lies and the Obama cover-up by Stanley Kurtz here. Is it any wonder I am a Ms Placed Democrat?
I digress though. I really need to get back to the point in hand. Will the investigation into ACORN by two Democrats in Nevada be fruitful? In my opinion given the lies and deceit we have uncovered this year in the blogs by the Democrats like the part some of them played in the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac government take-over, I highly doubt it. It is my mistrust of any Democratic politicians this year that truly makes me sad. Many tears have been shed, but the one thing I have learned is this, I will hold my federal legislators to their promises.
And I will never be afraid again to uncover or expose fraud like I did when I found Obama’s illegal FEC filings. The Democrats are corrupt and being led by the most corrupt of them all, Obama.
Election Fraud: A radical group Barack Obama used to work for is committing voter-registration fraud in several states, ahead of the election. What does Obama know about this scam?
I am going to let IBD tell the story themselves. Here it is posted in its entirety:
It’s a legitimate question to raise now that the FBI has raided the offices of the nonprofit Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now in Nevada and North Carolina, two states where Obama and John McCain are running neck-and-neck. ACORN has registered bogus voters in both states.
The group’s voter-registration fraud is rampant, and authorities plan a nationwide sweep of ACORN offices to collect records.
In Nevada, state officials say the fraudulent registrations included forms for the starting lineup of the Dallas Cowboys football team, including quarterback Tony Romo.
“Romo is not registered to vote in the state of Nevada,” Secretary of State Ross Miller said, “and anybody trying to pose as Terrell Owens won’t be able to cast a ballot on Nov. 4.”
While those names will be flagged on Election Day, felonious voters may have better luck using other cutouts. Nevada, along with several other key battleground states, requires no ID to vote.
In North Carolina, where Obama has been running nonstop ads, ACORN has registered a record number of new voters, many of them suspicious. Statewide, Democrats are doing better than the GOP in new converts — even in traditionally Republican counties.
There have been 218,749 newly registered Democrats in North Carolina since January — more than five times the 38,337 new Republicans, state records show.
The numbers show a startlingly close political battle even in Republican-dominated Union County, with 4,233 new voters registering as Democrats and 4,362 as Republicans. In previous election years, new Republicans have outnumbered Democrats 2-to-1 in the fast-growing Charlotte-area county.
In Missouri, one ACORN registrant named Monica Rays showed up on no less than eight forms, all bearing the same signature.
Suspicious election officials sent letters to some 5,000 ACORN registrants in St. Louis, asking the letter recipients to contact them.
Fewer than 40 reponded.
In Kansas City, 15,000 registrations have been questioned, and last year four ACORN employees were indicted for fraud.
In addition, ACORN officials have also been indicted in Wisconsin and Colorado. Investigations against others are active in Ohio, Florida, Pennsylvania and Tennessee.Read more »
FRAUD ALERT – Indianapolis… More People Registered To Vote Than Over 18yo.
Posted on October 9, 2008 by Texas Hill Country (Added by MsPlacedDemocrat: More about the Indianapolis voter totals can be read here.)
In recent weeks there have been multiple reports of massive voter registration fraud on the part of Democratic operatives all across the country.
Well the voter registration fraud is beginning to show up in some very real ways… especially in Indiana.
Indiana is one of the Republican states that Obama would really like to have and one that they intially said they could flip blue. Indianapolis is the key to Obama’s success in Indiana.
Obama cannot win Indiana unless there is an OBSCENELY high turnout Indianapolis… and they are trying… hard.
Apparently so hard that they now have 105% of eligible voters registered… and that number is expected to grow.
Here are the numbers for Marion (Indianapolis) county…
…677,401 voters were registered as of Monday evening; that number was expected to continue growing as last-minute registrations are entered into the system.
That means that Indianapolis has not only registered every single person over the age of 18 in the county, which is an impossible feat… they have registered even more than every single person in the county.
Voter registration fraud is happening on a scale never seen before. This makes 2000 look like a joke, and even the famous JFK/LBJ Texas and Illinois shadiness look amateurish.
Oh, and where has the media been on this?
That’s right… no where..
(Note: i did read an article on this subject somewhere but I lost the url and was unable to find it with a google search when I sat down to write this article, so I went back and did the research again… if anyone can find out where the basis for the info contained above, I would love to link them. They deserve credit for a job well done.)
This was cross posted from TexasHillCountry with permission.
OH Secretary of State Brunner is violating federal law by not giving county elections boards the chance to determine whether new voter registrations are fraudulent, a federal judge ruled tonight according to The Columbus Dispatch.
The Dispatch has a statement from the judge who heard the case:
It is hard to imagine a public interest more compelling than safeguarding the legitimacy of the election of the president of the United States,” said Judge George C. Smith of U.S. District Court in Columbus, in upholding the Ohio Republican Party’s request for a court order.
Smith, appointed by President Reagan, said the Help America Vote Act requires states not only to verify the identity of newly registered voters with the state Bureau of Motor Vehicles and the federal Social Security Administration, but to provide counties with the names of new voters whose records did not match.
More from the judge:
Smith cited the “millions of qualified electors across the state of Ohio whose confidence in the electoral process will be undermined if new voter registrations are not verified in accordance with HAVA, and if unqualified individuals are permitted to cast votes. This would demean the voting process and unlawfully dilute the votes of qualified voters.”
Smith said speed is necessary because next Thursday is the deadline to challenge absentee voters; on Oct. 25 elections workers can remove ballots from envelopes that contain the only identifying information about who cast them…
He specifically cited questionable activity of one group that registered thousands of new Ohio voters: the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, or ACORN.
Ohio Republican Party Deputy Chairman Kevin DeWine said the ruling spoke volumes about Brunner, a Democrat.
“Her refusal to comply with federal law raises serious concerns about her ability to objectively oversee this election. It’s especially troubling in light of her (Brunner) connection to ACORN and that group’s stunning confession this week of fraudulent registration activity happening right here in Ohio,” he said.
Brunner’s response:
Brunner’s office said she is filing an immediate appeal with the 6th U.S. Circuit Courts of Appeals.
“My office will do everything within its power to ensure that the state’s 88 county boards of elections can continue to allow early voting to proceed uninterrupted and to assist them with their preparation to ensure a smooth election for the voters of Ohio,” she said in a statement.
(It doesn’t look like that to me. She appears to be stalling for time.)
I am no election official, just a citizen journalist trying to educate voters, but it appears as though Brunner may be trying to affect the November election herself. She seems to be acting in a partisan manner. Brunner needs to be held to account for her behavior. Ohio is a state Republicans need to win the White House. Her procrastination may mean that McCain/Palin do not win in November. McCain/Palin must not ignore this law breaking Secretary of State….Brunner…they must challenge all election results in November especially if it is close.
The New York Post had an article today about ACORN. If you are like me you will really like the title……NUTS! HOW ACORN GOT ME INTO VOTE SCAM. It is an interesting tale of three Cleveland Ohio citizens, one a Domino’s pizza worker, Christopher Barkley, Lateala Goins, 21, and the third, Freddie Johnson, 19. All three were subpoenaed by…
the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections as part of a wider inquiry into possible voter fraud by ACORN.
Brunner tells Fox News that all cases are mere conjecture, that there is no evidence….View Brunner on Fox News. She said she should know she used to be a judge in Franklin County. If this is true, then why were three people subpoenaed before the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections?
Here is what those three people had to say about their experience with ACORN and registering to vote:
Barkley:
…claimed yesterday that they were hounded by the community-activist group ACORN to register to vote several times, even though they made it clear they’d already signed up.
Barkley estimated he’d registered to vote “10 to 15″ times after canvassers for ACORN, whose political wing has endorsed Barack Obama, relentlessly pursued him and others.
Goins:
“You can tell them you’re registered as many times as you want – they do not care,”
“They will follow you to the buses, they will follow you home, it does not matter,” she told The Post. She added that she never put down an address on any of the registration forms, just her name.
And the third man….
Freddie Johnson, 19, filled out registration cards 72 times over 18 months, officials said.
A Board Member said this:
“It feeds the public perception that there could be [fraud], and that makes the pillars fall down,” said local Board of Elections President Jeff Hastings.
Ohioans wake up! Don’t let Brunner steal the elections.
During a Waukesha, Wisconsin McCain/Palin rally one brave man had a request for McCain. He asked that McCain take it to Obama in the next debate. He mentioned ACORN, Ayers, Wright and Pfleger…Obama sure does surround himself with a cast of dangerous pals! Listen:
I really love this guy. He makes me want to battle on for McCain/Palin. I am doing just that on Saturday here in Kansas. I bet it is the first time a Democrat will be marching for a Republican in the history of Kansas. I certainly hope Governor Sebelius is reading this. I am a former Hillary supporter and I am voting for McCain/Palin. I will freely admit I am supporting McCain through small donations as well as membership in Citizens for McCain, Veterans for McCain and Women for McCain.
Audacity Of Deception & Hypocrisy has written a post highlighting the missing ACORN papers from Tony Foulkes, a Chicago ACORN Leader. The papers are called…..Case Study: Chicago- The Barack Obama Campaign and originally published in Social Justice.
Audacity of Deception & Hypocrisy had this to say:
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.
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?
Here are some excerpts from the “Case Study…”:
“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.“
More from Audacity…
Not only does Foulkes boast of Obama’s ACORN leadership training, but also makes it clear that Obama’s post-law school organizing of “Project VOTE” in 1992 was undertaken in direct partnership with ACORN. The tie between Project VOTE and ACORN is also something that Obama and others have attempted to disprove in recent weeks as ACORN has come under fire for allegations of voter registration fraud.
As recently as March 2008, the Los Angeles Times also made reference to Barack Obama’s involvement with ACORN:
“At the time, Talbot worked at the social action group ACORN and initially considered Obama a competitor. But she became so impressed with his work that she invited him to help train her staff.” (LA Times, March 2, 2008)
Audacity of Deception & Hypocrisy also said this:
Nevertheless, Barack Obama’s campaign website continues to lie and deny the truth about his involvement and association with ACORN. No matter how many times you say it, it does not make it true. The facts do not lie, Senator Obama. It’s time to come clean and tell the truth, and it’s time for the American people to demand it.
I really have nothing more to add except to say DITTO.
I never thought I would see the day I have more respect for the Republicans. I always thought the Democrats were the “people’s party”. As I watched the cheating and lies put forth by Obama and the DNC in and after the primaries, I realized they no longer had my respect.
Today I have a deeper and more abiding respect for House Minority Leader John Boehner. He truly should be given an award or something for calling a halt to all monies or funding for ACORN. He took it a step further asking that all federal candidates back away from anything that would make them appear to support ACORN in any way.
Here is more on that from Ed Morrissey at Hot Air:
Congressional Republicans have finally demanded an end to federal funding for ACORN after more than a dozen states have opened investigations into fraud in their voter-registration efforts. House Minority Leader John Boehner has not only called to end that funding for ACORN but also for all federal candidates to stop contracting with ACORN while investigations continue into their business practices.
The latest allegations of voter registration fraud by ACORN are further evidence that this group cannot be trusted with another dollar of the taxpayers’ money.
“Election cycle after election cycle, this organization has been at the forefront of breaking the law in order to promote their left-wing agenda. All the while, they have been the recipients of millions of dollars of federal funding through various federal programs and third-party groups. House Republicans took at stand recently to cut off funding to an ACORN slush fund created by their allies in the House Majority, but now more must be done.
“All federal funding to ACORN must be stopped. The ACORN slush fund must be disbanded. Sources of federal funding through the Department of Housing and Urban Development or any other agency must be stopped. Contracting for services between candidates for federal office and ACORN, as Senator Obama has done, must end. Now that the taxpayers own Fannie Mae, any funding from Fannie Mae’s nonprofit foundation to ACORN must stop.
“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, making American voters question the fairness and accuracy of the exercise of their most fundamental right under the Constitution. Now it is time to cut off ACORN before it grows even more destructive.”
The federal government was remiss in funding ACORN with any taxpayer funds when they are definitely not non-partisan. The very fact that Obama paid them more than $800,000 this election year may be a conflict of interest at best, but certainly lends credence to his lack of character and judgment.
It is time to end the reign of terror by ACORN and other groups like it. It is past time to cut-off their tax-payer funding as was done in the $700 billion dollar bailout bill. It may be too little too late.
I will echo a strange foreboding chorus I keep reading across the blogs….RICO ACT. The Department of Justice must raid all ACORN offices. It is time that ACORN is dismantled…..and left as nothing but a smashed acorn upon the ground and Obama should join them.
This video attempts to find the origins of the current subprime mortgage meltdown. Ed Morrissey from Hot Air brought it to the attention of his readers. I am replaying the video and Morrissey’s words here:
Another lengthy video attempts to highlight the beginnings of the subprime loan disaster, and it’s well worth watching. Andrew Cuomo, then Bill Clinton’s HUD Secretary, held a press conference on April 6, 1998, explaining a settlement reached with a major bank on a lending discrimination case based presumably on the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA). Cuomo brags about how “this administration will enforce the law”, but he also makes a very telling admission about the $2.1 billion in subprime loans that the bank would offer as a result of the settlement:
After viewing this video it is obvious these ALT-A, loans, NINJA loans and all other types of subprime loans would never have been made if it weren’t for Affirmative Action. Affirmative Action set forth by our government…. Read more »
This piece is cross posted from Pagan Power. Thank you Pagan for bringing this to our attention.
Over 1/4 ACORN Registrations in PA Fraudulent
October 10, 2008
This is really starting to get out of hand. A retired Supreme Court Justice in Pennsylvania doesn’t believe it will even be possible to have a fair election in her state.
Stealing Pennsylvania: “Massive Fraud”
A retired Pennsylvania Supreme Court Justice says that she is “not confident we can get a fair election” in the state come November.
Justice Sandra Newman, accompanied by Dauphin County District Attorney Edward Marsico and Pennsylvania Republican State Chairman Robert Gleason, expressed her concerns at a Harrisburg press conference this morning. A thick document replete with photo copies of phony registrations and aerial shots of vacant lots used as “addresses” for “voters” was handed out to journalists.
Gleason breaks it down with the facts. And they are very troubling.
“Between March 23rd and October 1st, various groups, including ACORN, submitted over 252,595 registrations to the Philadelphia County Election Board” with 57, 435 rejected for faulty information. “Most of these registrations were submitted by ACORN, and rejected due to fake social security numbers, incorrect dates of birth, clearly fraudulent signatures, addresses that do not exist, and duplicate registrations. In one case, a man was registered to vote more than 15 times since the Primary election.”
And who is behind this? None other than ACORN, the community organizing front group for Barack Obama’s blatant attempt to steal this election. So much so that he gave them over $800,000 to do just that. Read more »
This morning the Israpundit brought an interesting trend to our attention…Obama’s followers are now questioning his veracity on ACORN at mybarackobama.com. Here are some of those comments from Israpundit:
Obama’s FORMER supporters at My.BarackObama.com say “Obama let us down” by Bill Levinson
We have little doubt that the people who posted these entries will soon have their My.BarackObama.com accounts disabled by Obama’s moderators (and at least one did), in which case we are delighted to welcome them to PUMA or the GOP, whichever they prefer. Since their pages will doubtlessly be taken down as well, we will include the Google caches for reference. What we are looking at is what organizational science calls “loss of commitment,” and its result is total organizational disaster. The original “Say it ain’t so” is, incidentally, from the 1919 Chicago “Black Sox” scandal.
This ACORN stuff is really really bad. As a voter, I really need to know that Obama wasn’t funding an organization that willingly engaged in voter fraud.
This could be a game changer for me.
Obama Lies About Acorn (cache)
This one was deleted by Obama’s moderators, but not before Google cached it. The user’s account was disabled as well
CURIOUS By K from Portland, OR
…We now have the problem of questioning 1) voter registration and actual voting in these states; 2) Obama’s responses to criticism. And if we have to question all of that, then how can we take at face value anything this ticket says?
For my part, I feel very let down. I feel a total lack of trust in this team, and in what has been voiced in the various sound bites and rhetoric.
…This is a campaign of change? From what? to What? This sounds like Chicago politics as usual.
OBAMA LIES ABOUT ACORN
By MYOHIO – Oct 9th, 2008 at 1:12 pm EDT
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This is what Obama said to ACORN, at a November, 2007 speech, according to Newsmax:
“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.”
By Mark from Pittsburg, KS Yesterday at 1:44 am EDT (Updated Yesterday at 1:44 am EDT)
I have been a devoted supporter of Barack Obama since I saw him speak at the 2004 Democratic Convention, for which I was a delegate, but I am very disappointed by the campaign’s response thus far. If Barack does not strongly denounce some of the tactics of ACORN, and call for an IMMEDIATE investigation, I fear that voters (many of whom are already angry at all politicians) will lose faith in Barack. Given that such faith in Senator Obama is crucial to his “brand,” this could represent a serious threat to our campaign. I must confess that this episode represents the first time my faith in Barack has been tested. Such faith of Americans in Barack is not only crucial to the campaign, but also in any hopes we have for his successful presidency.
Sincerely,
Mark Peterson
By First Name from Avondale, AZ Yesterday at 9:53 pm EDT (Updated Yesterday at 9:53 pm EDT)
His ties to the pastor who said those awful things about America, his connection to a terrorist who bombed the Pentagon, now Acorn is registering people to vote who don’t exist. Does this sound like a president to you? I’m really worried about America’s future.
By Jennifer from Chicago, IL – Oct 10th, 2008 at 2:50 pm EDT
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Obama campaign – you have a real situation on your hands w/ this Acorn dilema. Who cares about Wright and Ayers, but FRAUD, this is huge. Your entire campaign has centered around trust and change and this could completely tarnish your reputation. You, Obama, need to get on TV RIGHT NOW and explain the situation. This cannot linger in hopes of it dying down and it needs to be addressed before the McCain camp attacks. I would suggest you telling the American people, that you are appalled and don’t condone this activity and that you will put up you own money (personal or campaign) to ensure that no this situation is fixed. You must explain what is going on and separate yourself from this activity……NOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Jennifer, let us introduce you to the underside of Obama’s bus, where your MyBO account will soon go–but don’t worry, you will find plenty of good company
I’m still undecided. I am very concerned about all the news about Ayers, Wright, Farakan, Rezko, ACORN, etc. Please convince me i have nothing to worry about.
In other words, “Say it ain’t so, Barry.”
Obama’s action and words are beginning to eat in to his koolaid swilling supporters brains. They are beginning to realize that Obama has not answered the calls to explain his connections to ACORN. I however believe that there is no way he can denounce ACORN because he paid them to work for him this year.
I will offer this, I have confirmed this rumor on other blogs, but have not confirmed via the mainstream media. I am willing to put the idea out there risking my reputation. I live in Kansas. According to our Secretary of State’s election office there is no “fraud” here. I have to question their assertion because there are people standing at 21st and Oliver in Wichita, KS attempting to register FELONS. Those of you living in some of those battle field states, ask questions of your state officials.
Hillary supporters, upset about Chicago fraud politics invading their party are breaking ranks and working with republicans to provide evidence for RICO (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act) cases being filed against ACORN and Obama campaign in Chicago and across the country. Interestingly enough in the same article, Clinton supporters divulge that McCain is leading in their internal polling of battleground states, contrary to the cooked polls advertised by national polling outfits.
Republicans and centrist Democrats are joined together on this effort to get the truth out about Obama before the November election. We firmly believe in McCain’s victory and do not believe it hinges on any developments with RICO. The polls, in our opinon, are wrong, and the internal numbers we see coming out of NC, VA, PA, OH, IN and FL show McCain wins in all of those states (there is no mathematical possibility for Obama to win without taking PA, OH, or FL). We believe after McCain’s win there will be a continued prosecution of Obama and members of the Democratic party for voter fraud under RICO statutes in the months and years ahead. ACORN and leftist Democrats have gone too far this time — for years ACORN has engineered deliberate election fraud using taxpayer dollars funneled to it by Democrats. This time, with both Democrats and Republicans joined against them, ACORN Is going down…and we believe it will ultimately take Obama, Axelrod, and most of today’s Democratic leadership down with it.
There IS a RICO investigation of ACORN and the Obama campaign underway – this has now been established by the mainstream media. Right now it’s rumored here in Chicago that Patrick Fitzgerald is heading it (confirmation on that has not come yet). There is a lot of activity in Chicago right now, with a lot of IRS agents looking into the finances coming in and out of this city, and across state lines (this was established on Monday when the GOP issued emergency press releases that much of Obama’s campaign contributions could very well be illegal foreign contributions – what appears to be deliberately poor record keeping designed to hide the true identities and monetary sources of online donors is at issue here). We see in 15 states now that ACORN is being busted for attempted voter fraud, and for fraudulent, illegal voter registratons in the hundreds of thousands, if not a million. The article below states, and we have confirmed this with people who know for sure, that the people who gathered evidence of Obama’s fraud and voter intimidation techniques during the primaries against Hillary Clinton are sharing everything they have with the Republican Party and the federal government.
What’s happening here is something we have never seen before: centrist Clinton Democrats and Republicans are working together to expose the DNC and Obama campaign’s illegal activities and orchestrated, coordinated fraud. Both parties are working with federal agents to investigate ACORN, which has been funded with upwards of $800,000 in questionable donations from the Obama campaign (in what appears to be the expressed and explicit direction to engineer voter fraud in the general election). The tactics being employed now in the 15 states currently under investigation are the VERY SAME TACTICS we saw on the ground in Iowa, Texas, Colorado, Nebraska, Indiana, and other states working for Hillary Clinton in the primaries.
The New York Post has another ACORN story, 1 VOTER, 72 REGISTRATIONS
‘ACORN PAID ME IN CASH & CIGS’ and it is true. This is true voter fraud. ACORN must be stopped. At the very least the Department of Justice needs to see if their activities cane be investigated and tried under the RICO laws.
More from the post:
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.
ACORN is now paying people with cash and cigarettes. There have been reports in the past from Alabama about votes for cocaine. More on paying voters to register:
“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.
Johnson used the same information on all of his registration cards, and officials say they usually catch and toss out duplicate registrations. But the practice sparks fear that some multiple registrants could provide different information and vote more than once by absentee ballot.
The frightening thing is ACORN is now under investigation in so many states, I sincerely doubt the fraud will be able to be stopped. Read about the investigations:
ACORN is under investigation in Ohio and at least eight other states – including Missouri, where the FBI said it’s planning to look into potential voter fraud – for over-the-top efforts to get as many names as possible on the voter rolls regardless of whether a person is registered or eligible.
It’s even under investigation in Bridgeport, Conn., for allegedly registering a 7-year-old girl to vote, according to the State Elections Enforcement Commission.
More from the Post:
ACORN’s political wing has endorsed Barack Obama for president, but Ben LaBolt, a spokesman for the Obama campaign in Ohio, said ACORN has no role in its get-out-the-vote drive.
During the primary season, however, the Obama camp paid another group, Citizen Service Inc., $832,598 for various political services, according to Federal Elections Commission filings. That group and ACORN share the same board of directors.
In Wisconsin yesterday, John McCain blasted ACORN.
“No one should be corrupting the most precious right we have, that is the right to vote,” he said.
The political arm of ACORN has endorsed Obama. It really looks like the is a conflict of interest on the part of Democrats, Obama and ACORN. Once more I am going to ask this, when is the Department of Justice really going to investigate ACORN and Obama?
I have been thinking about McCain and campaign finance reform for some time now. He is the most transparent candidate in history. A small $5 dollar donation got me on his list of donors, not $200, $500 and certainly not $2300…this is true transparency.
Here is the letter that Senator John McCain wrote to Obama concerning campaign finance reform:
February 6, 2006
Washington D.C. – Today, Senator McCain sent the following letter to Senator Obama regarding ongoing Congressional efforts towards bipartisan lobbying reform. The following is the text from that letter:
February 6, 2006
The Honorable Barack Obama
United States Senate
SH-713
Washington, DC 20510
Dear Senator Obama:
I would like to apologize to you for assuming that your private assurances to me regarding your desire to cooperate in our efforts to negotiate bipartisan lobbying reform legislation were sincere. When you approached me and insisted that despite your leadership’s preference to use the issue to gain a political advantage in the 2006 elections, you were personally committed to achieving a result that would reflect credit on the entire Senate and offer the country a better example of political leadership, I concluded your professed concern for the institution and the public interest was genuine and admirable. Thank you for disabusing me of such notions with your letter to me dated February 2, 2006, which explained your decision to withdraw from our bipartisan discussions. I’m embarrassed to admit that after all these years in politics I failed to interpret your previous assurances as typical rhetorical gloss routinely used in politics to make self-interested partisan posturing appear more noble. Again, sorry for the confusion, but please be assured I won’t make the same mistake again.
As you know, the Majority Leader has asked Chairman Collins to hold hearings and mark up a bill for floor consideration in early March. I fully support such timely action and I am confident that, together with Senator Lieberman, the Committee on Governmental Affairs will report out a meaningful, bipartisan bill.
You commented in your letter about my “interest in creating a task force to further study” this issue, as if to suggest I support delaying the consideration of much-needed reforms rather than allowing the committees of jurisdiction to hold hearings on the matter. Nothing could be further from the truth. The timely findings of a bipartisan working group could be very helpful to the committee in formulating legislation that will be reported to the full Senate. Since you are new to the Senate, you may not be aware of the fact that I have always supported fully the regular committee and legislative process in the Senate, and routinely urge Committee Chairmen to hold hearings on important issues. In fact, I urged Senator Collins to schedule a hearing upon the Senate’s return in January.
Furthermore, I have consistently maintained that any lobbying reform proposal be bipartisan. The bill Senators Joe Lieberman and Bill Nelson and I have introduced is evidence of that commitment as is my insistence that members of both parties be included in meetings to develop the legislation that will ultimately be considered on the Senate floor. As I explained in a recent letter to Senator Reid, and have publicly said many times, the American people do not see this as just a Republican problem or just a Democratic problem. They see it as yet another run-of-the-mill Washington scandal, and they expect it will generate just another round of partisan gamesmanship and posturing. Senator Lieberman and I, and many other members of this body, hope to exceed the public’s low expectations. We view this as an opportunity to bring transparency and accountability to the Congress, and, most importantly, to show the public that both parties will work together to address our failings.
As I noted, I initially believed you shared that goal. But I understand how important the opportunity to lead your party’s effort to exploit this issue must seem to a freshman Senator, and I hold no hard feelings over your earlier disingenuousness. Again, I have been around long enough to appreciate that in politics the public interest isn’t always a priority for every one of us. Good luck to you, Senator.
Obama promised all community organizers including ACORN that he will meet with them within the first 100 days of his presidency. Obama goes another step further and promises they will be part of his transition team. He promises these community organizers like ACORN will shape his agenda……
It will not be the middle class or any class that will shape his agenda, it will be groups like ACORN that shapes his agenda. We absolutely must go to the polls and vote McCain/Palin. We simply can’t allow an Obama presidency with no checks and balances. Remember it is Country Before Party!
The American Thinker had some thoughts on the birth certificate in This could be the game changer. Here is what they had to say:
It makes accessible to the general public some of the serious questions about Obama’s citizenship status that have been vetted almost exclusively in the conservative web world. You can’t get most voters to focus on print media in order to entertain a series of hard questions on what seems like a far-fetched notion. Especially those voters who rely on the Big Media. They figure that if this were true, they would have heard about it from the old familiar faces.
A far-fetched notion. I still harbor doubts not about the birth certificate but about the whole legal case. I am no lawyer and won’t pretend to understand much except I understood discovery and I understood the US Constitution.
More from the Thinker:
A lifelong Democrat who has held political office and been a committeeman, Philip Berg, has brought suit over the real questions raised by the absence of a valid Obama birth certificate. His narrative of the various questions Obama has refused to answer is devastating. Graphics and sound are well-deployed to avoid tedium as factual data is conveyed in a way that allows viewers to absorb it. When he contrasts Obama’s behavior when challenged (use perfectly valid legal technicalities to delay) with John McCain’s full disclosure of all documentary evidence under a similar challenge (remember the flap over his birth in the Panama Canal Zone? — who raised those questions, anyway?), there is no doubt in a viewer’s mind that there is something seriously wrong here.
And The Thinker asks a very pertinent question:
We are talking about the Presidency and this guy stonewalls?
Stonewalling or outright lying is Obama’s “modus operandi” Does he find it beyond his “paygrade” to produce documents or be honest about his associations or something as simple as a birth certificate. What is he hiding?
And read more:
The only way Obama can satisfactorily respond is to release his suposed Hawaiian birth certificate. If he has it, why hasn’t he released it? If he does release it, game over. So why drag this out on technical grounds? It doesn’t make sense.
If this video gets widely viewed and discussed, Obama’s support will crumble in the face of continued stonewalling.
I am grateful for the efforts of the people who put this op together. It is brilliantly timed. I do know that there are one or more smart Democrats who haven’t forgiven Obama and who don’t want to see him elected. They know how to design and implement really effective plans to get things done.
They might even want to get Obama thrown off the ballot and replaced by the second place finisher before Election Day. Or, if the Democratic Party stonewalls and the court delays, pick up the pieces.
Phillip Berg tells the story. I don’t know what the truth is about Obama. Do you? Nobody really does. Please listen to Berg as he talks:
Obama was a “constitutional law lecturer” at the University of Chicago, what part of the Constitution doesn’t he understand? And why does Obama refuse to be honest about ACORN, Ayers, Rezko and even something simple like birth certificate?
This is a fantastic McCain advertisement. President Bill Clinton admits Democrats resisted the efforts the Republicans made in Congress to REIN in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Listen:
President Clinton is right. Obama was part of the cabal of Democrats who refused to pass legislation that would have put regulations on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. And now we have a $700 billion dollar bailout package.
I must thank my dear friend Shtuey for seeing the bigger picture for all of us. And I must say thank you for helping me recover some of my memories of Denver. Shtuey you are my hero!
From Shtuey, my guest for the day:
At the outset I must thank Ms Placed Democrat’s Renaissancelady 48 and Eastan McNeal at No Quarter for their exhaustive research, love of country, and wise council.
How did we get here? How is it that “subprime mortgages” have brought us to the brink of economic collapse? Most people believe it is due to the predatory lending practices of financial institutions. That is the lie you have been sold. The truth is far more insidious. We are in fact on the brink of economic disaster because of the people who have sent Barack Obama.
In order to understand how this happened we must begin with Saul Alinsky , the radical socialist who, after spending a great deal of time with the Al Capone crime family in Chicago, realized that the same shakedown tactics used by the mob to extort business, and control politicians, could be used by activists to shakedown banks and political institutions to advance a socialist agenda. These were tactics utilized by groups like ACORN, in an effort to lobby the government to pass laws that forced lending institutions to issue mortgages to low income/”at risk” borrowers who often had no way of paying the money back.
But ACORN members probably did not lobby for these laws to bring down our economy, at least not knowingly. I believe that, apart from the leaders at the top, rank and file ACORN members legitimately believed they were fighting for low-income housing. But ACORN’s backers were simply using Alinsky’s method (never reveal your real agenda) to serve their own purposes. Who are these people? You know the names of two of them: Bill Ayers and Barack Obama. I suspect that they are more front men than anything else, though who knows who Ayers was with while he was in hiding?
Where did ACORN get the funds to engage in the widespread lobbying (read extortion) that allowed them to shakedown lenders and politicians? From the money diverted to them by Bill Ayers and Barack Obama, via the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, and the Woods Fund, as well as with your tax dollars allocated by Congressional Democrats; the same Congressional Democrats that have received hundreds of thousands of dollars from Freddie and Fannie in the form of campaign contributions; the same Congressional Democrats that ignored Republican calls for the regulating and reform of Freddie and Fannie–the institutions that took subprime mortgages, bundled them, and infected financial institutions worldwide…all in the name of granting minorities and low income families access to housing (always the trouble begins with the most honorable of intentions, or at least it is made to seem so), but with the Leftists’ hidden purpose of initiating a worldwide economic collapse. All of it accomplished with ACORN as the muscle.
“compels banks to make loans to low-income borrowers and in what the supporters of the Act call “communities of color” that they might not otherwise make based on purely economic criteria.”
DiLorenzo goes on to explain:
The original lobbyists for the CRA were the hardcore leftists who supported the Carter administration and were often rewarded for their support with government grants and programs like the CRA that they benefited from. These included various “neighborhood organizations,” as they like to call themselves, such as “ACORN” (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now). These organizations claim that over $1 trillion in CRA loans have been made, although no one seems to know the magnitude with much certainty. A U.S. Senate Banking Committee staffer told me about ten years ago that at least $100 billion in such loans had been made in the first twenty years of the Act.
So-called “community groups” like ACORN benefit themselves from the CRA through a process that sounds like legalized extortion. The CRA is enforced by four federal government bureaucracies: the Fed, the Comptroller of the Currency, the Office of Thrift Supervision, and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. The law is set up so that any bank merger, branch expansion, or new branch creation can be postponed or prohibited by any of these four bureaucracies if a CRA “protest” is issued by a “community group.” This can cost banks great sums of money, and the “community groups” understand this perfectly well. It is their leverage. They use this leverage to get the banks to give them millions of dollars as well as promising to make a certain amount of bad loans in their communities.
A man named Bruce Marks became quite notorious during the last decade for pressuring banks to earmark literally billions of dollars to his organization, the “Neighborhood Assistance Corporation of America.” He once boasted to the New York Times that he had “won” loan commitments totaling $3.8 billion from Bank of America, First Union Corporation, and the Fleet Financial Group. And that is just one “community group” operating in one city – Boston.
Banks have been placed in a Catch 22 situation by the CRA: If they comply, they know they will have to suffer from more loan defaults. If they don’t comply, they face financial penalties and, worse yet, their business plans for mergers, branch expansions, etc. can be blocked by CRA protesters, which can cost a large corporation like Bank of America billions of dollars. Like most businesses, they have largely buckled under and have surrendered to their bureaucratic masters.
Consequently, banks in every community in America have been forced to hold a portfolio of bad loans, euphemistically referred to as “subprime” loans. In order to compensate themselves for the added risk of extending these loans, many lenders have increased the lending fees associated with mortgage loans. This is simply an indirect way of doing what banks always do – and what they must do to remain solvent: charging effectively higher rates of interest on riskier loans.
But this is discriminatory!, complained the “community organizations.” Thus, if one browses the ACORN web site, one can read of their boasts of having “predatory lending laws” passed in numerous states which outlaw such fees, prohibiting banks from protecting themselves from the added risk involved in making forced loans to “subprime” borrowers.
I have been concerned about tightening credit too but was rewarded recently with a car loan from a local bank in Kansas. My husband and I were forced to by a new car since we lost mine in a freak accident. We went to a little town in Kansas called Cheney. We picked out our new car. We were originally approved for a loan with USBank, which they withdrew two days later, no need to worry a community bank filled the bill.
He has some questions and some sage advice. He even evokes memories of the 1980s when they started calling in farm loans. These bankers are wise, sometimes very smart money men. And we should take their advice;
Here is Mr. Wyckoff from the article:
Here in the heart of Kansas, the sky isn’t falling and Chicken Little isn’t running around without a head. Community banks like mine are still making loans and serving the needs of customers.
… I used to worry about competing in the world of mega “too-big-to-fail” banks. But now I know community banks offer something the monsters can never offer — real personal service.
… but they usually don’t list personal numbers in the phone book and probably aren’t driving the volunteer fire truck.
And finally from his personal observations:
… My father always told me that character repaid many more debts than collateral ever would. Community banks form long-term relationships with customers.
He shares the lessons of the 80s here in Kansas when agricultural loans were called by the mega banks. The community banks did some very unusual things to keep some of these farms and ranches in business.
During the farm crisis of the 1980s the over-line credits we had placed with the city correspondent banks were called. A community bank used to rely on participating loans with large metro banks. For example, if my bank had a regulatory loan limit of a million dollars and I made a two million dollar loan, I would “sell” the over-line to a large bank. These large banks suddenly suspended and called all rural credits. This is probably similar to what is happening to borrowers who use super-large banks in today’s panic environment. There was nothing wrong with these loans but every small bank suffered from this irrational wrath.
A group of fellow bankers formed an ad hoc loan-pooling arrangement and we traded loans. Not a dime was lost, no borrowers were sold out and we didn’t need a government bailout. It did instill a fierce sense of independence and self reliance.
Wyckoff has a few questions for Congress. Please read his comments:
Today we are reacting to a crisis that absolutely everyone knew was going to happen. Can you tell me that the entire congressional delegation from California didn’t read a newspaper or watch any TV when unregulated brokers were offering 100% loans and allowing borrowers to make up their income?
Appraisal rules were established after the savings-and-loan debacle. The brokers and packagers weren’t regulated so some appraisers really had a field day being creative. And now the government thinks we need new rules? They didn’t enforce the existing ones.
The irony of it all. The new rules were needed three years when McCain stood up and spoke on the impending meltdown, Obama wrote a letter…Who was the most prescient?
There is more from Wyckoff:
All of the media pressure about this terrible crisis has really worried people. We community bankers must spend time reassuring folks that everything will be fine. The best way I have found to do that is to make more loans this September than we made a year ago, offer new products, and serve a fantastic group of customers with home loans at our bank where all is well and none are facing foreclosure.
If the government really wanted to help banks stimulate this economy, all that would be needed is a bonfire eliminating redundant red tape. While starter homes may cost a half-million dollars in some parts of this country, they are one-tenth of that here. So why does the borrower sign but three pieces of paper to process a $50,000 auto loan but needs two dozen-plus documents (which are never read) for a home purchase of the same amount? All that extra paperwork sure didn’t protect anyone in this crisis.
Can anyone tell me why my small bank headquartered in a town of 1,100 is subject to the onerous rules of CRA, HMDA, CIP, FACTA, Red Flag and others? We have no red-lined areas or stop lights and everyone is making a low or moderate income. We were probably at the hospital when the borrower was born.
I am really concerned about my grandchildren’s future being mortgaged by a $1 trillion porked-up bailout. But our small bank, along with many others, is alive and well and still making loans. To paraphrase the late great Kansas newspaperman William Allen White: What’s right with Kansas are the more than 300 local banks taking care of Main Street.
We not only made our car loan through a local community bank but our house loan was made through another local community bank. We did all of this just since August. And we plan to move all our deposits to one of those community banks. And no I won’t worry the banker, I won’t need to buy a safe and everything will be all right with our community bank here in Kansas.
An interesting story at The Corner on Saturday intrigued me, “What kind of education reform did Ayers & Obama have in mind?”. It talks more about Ayers “education reform”. As a former educator, I decided to read it. My opinion Ayers thoughts on education are much too radical. As a matter of fact, I wouldn’t allow him to educate anyone let alone the young impressionable minds that step in to the world of our universities today as a freshman. It may have been thirty years ago I arrived at UMass/Amherst, but I remember being struck by the enormity of that decision, not to mention it is a huge school.
Here are excerpts from the article:
But for a clear statement of Ayers’s frightening vision, I submit that his November 2006 speech at the World Education Forum should be required reading.
As Cornerites know, I’ve been arguing that our emphasis on Ayers’s prior terrorism, while highly relevant, is not the essential point. The real issue is Ayers’s revolutionary leftism (at around the time Ayers and Obama began working on the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, by the way, Ayers described himself as “a radical, Leftist, small ‘c’ communist”).
Andy McCarthy is correct. It is Ayer’s revolutionary leftism that we need to pay attention to. More from the article:
Obama is clearly lying when he claims ignorance about Ayers’s terrorism, but even if you wanted to pretend otherwise, it is impossible that he was in the dark about Ayers’s revolutionary leftism: Ayers has never made a secret of it and can’t seem to help himself from mentioning it about every 30 seconds. Obama not only knew about Ayers’s views in this regard; he obviously subscribed to them: was a member of the Chicago New Party begun by the Democratic Socialists of America; he worked closely with Ayers on “education reform” for years, he approved of Ayers’s similarly fringe-Left views of the criminal justice system’s treatment of juvenile crime, and, we are learning; and he was tightly aligned with ACORN, which he and Ayers funded and whose practices fit comfortably with the Ayers view of “participatory democracy”).
Let’s look at excerpts from Ayers’s 2006 speech before Hugo Chavez and other assembled “comrades”:
President Hugo Chavez, … invited guests, comrades. I’m honored and humbled to be here with you this morning. I bring greetings and support from your brothers and sisters throughout Northamerica [sic]! Welcome to the World Education Forum. Amamos la revolucion Bolivariana! …
[M]y comrade and friend Luis Bonilla, a brilliant educator and inspiring fighter for justice … has taught me a great deal about the Bolivarian Revolution [i.e., Chavez's movement] and about the profound educational reforms underway here in Venezuela under the leadership of President Chavez. We share the belief that education is the motor-force of revolution, and I’ve come to appreciate Luis as a major asset in both the Venezuelan and the international struggle—I look forward to seeing how he and all of you continue to overcome the failings of capitalist education as you seek to create something truly new and deeply humane…. [For more information on the Venezuelan socialist Luis Bonilla-Montoya, see here.]
I began teaching when I was 20 yeas old in a small freedom school affiliated with the Civil Rights Movement in the United States. The year was 1965, and I’d been arrested in a demonstration. Jailed for ten days, I met several activists who were finding ways to link teaching and education with deep and fundamental social change. They were following Dewey and DuBois, King and Helen Keller who wrote: “We can’t have education without revolution. We have tried peace education for 1,900 years and it has failed. Let us try revolution and see what it will do now.”
I walked out of jail and into my first teaching position—and from that day until this I’ve thought of myself as a teacher, but I’ve also understood teaching as a project intimately connected with social justice. After all, the fundamental message of the teacher is this: you can change your life—whoever you are, wherever you’ve been, whatever you’ve done, another world is possible. As students and teachers begin to see themselves as linked to one another, as tied to history and capable of collective action, the fundamental message of teaching shifts slightly, and becomes broader, more generous: we must change ourselves as we come together to change the world. Teaching invites transformations, it urges revolutions small and large. La educacion es revolucion! Read more »
I really don’t care for Newsmax but sometimes it is necessary to go to fringe elements to get interesting stories. We have been listening about ACORN and their voter drives, well it seems Liberty University is seeking to register their 4,000 students to vote in the Virginia November 4 th Elections. Why do you ask? Of course to make sure McCain is elected in November. (An aside here: My friend’s son is a student at Liberty University.)
Read and see what the university is doing:
Liberty University, the Virginia school founded by the late evangelical leader Jerry Falwell, has launched a drive to register its mostly conservative students in hopes of swinging the state to John McCain in November.
Virginia has not voted for a Democratic presidential candidate since 1964. But recent polls show McCain only slightly ahead of Barack Obama, and Democrats won the last two statewide races, for governor and U.S. senator.
So Jerry Falwell Jr., chancellor of the university, is promoting a drive to register all 10,500 eligible students, including those from out of state, at the fundamentalist Baptist school in Lynchburg.
“Liberty students [from out of state] have never been permitted to register locally in the past,” Falwell said in an e-mail to faculty and staff.
“The recent change in election law is giving Liberty University the chance to make history. Liberty University’s students and 4,000 faculty and staff could cause Liberty to become known as the university that elected a president!”
Falwell told National Public Radio: “We never told them how to vote. We never even talked about the issues. We just talked about the fact that Virginia was right on the fence and could go either way.”
One student, Jonathan Woods, a junior at Liberty, said: “The majority of Liberty students want McCain to win. If you have a few thousand people voting for one candidate who weren’t [initially] voting in Virginia, it could possibly make a difference.”
Falwell also announced that classes will be canceled on Election Day, and buses will be available to take students to the polls, Shea Connelly of the University of Virginia’s Cavalier Daily reported.
The school’s curfew will be lifted so students can watch the election results on a giant-screen TV.
College Democrats of American President Katie Naranjo said she is not concerned about the voter registration drive. “I feel very comfortable that young people will sway the vote in Virginia,” she told Connelly, “and it will be a victory for Senator Obama.”
But when asked by NPR if there were any Democrats at Liberty, student Danielle Fierro said: “I knew one, but he transferred.”
The last sentence in the article just tickled my funny bone. Thank heavens there is at least one university devoid of the Obama-supporting, koolaid swilling, nasty, and ill mannered college students. Just ask me I did a visibility event at Purdue in Indiana!
It’s bad enough that American taxpayers have to bail out the privately owned, tax-exempt Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. But it’s truly outrageous that tax dollars will also go to support activist groups involved in voter fraud and illegal immigration.
Their careful evaluation of the housing bill wasn’t finished. They had more to say:
According to House Financial Services Committee member Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., the small print in the $42 billion bailout bill passed by Congress and signed by President Bush requires these two government-sponsored mortgage giants to deposit 4.2 percent of all new mortgages they underwrite into the National Affordable Housing Trust Fund. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that will be $531 million in fiscal 2009 alone.
Here’s the catch. Bachmann warns that the trust fund — the largest expansion of federal housing assistance since Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society — is required to make grants to organizations that have “demonstrated the experience and the capacity to carry out the proposed Trust Fund activity.” Which means that money can easily be siphoned off to groups such as the National Council of La Raza and the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now. The latter has been heavily funded by George Soros, the mega-wealthy mogul behind many liberal causes.
La Raza, which opposes efforts to stop illegal immigration, and ACORN, members of which have been convicted of voter registration fraud in numerous states, are each eligible for $230 million under Section 134: Grants for Housing Counseling Assistance. And because the trust fund is “off budget,” the grants won’t show up on any congressional balance sheets. The Fannie Mae Foundation has already contributed more than $800,000 to the ACORN Housing Corp., which was also actively involved in the sub-prime mortgage disaster. La Raza testified before the Financial Services Committee in favor of the housing trust fund on numerous occasions. Little wonder. It’s a perfect way to hide payoffs to activist groups that in turn support political candidates who promise to keep their funding spigot on full blast.
The best part of this article was in the summary paragraph:
These morsels are just a taste of what’s to come if Barack Obama wins the White House and Democrats gain veto-proof majorities in the Senate and House. As an opening bid in his $6 billion anti-poverty program, Obama seeks a Social Investment Fund Network with a White House office to disburse funds to “social entrepreneurs and leading non-profits” that are inspiring “change in their communities.” Translated: Obama will give billions more tax dollars to radical non-profits like Soros’ ACORN and LaRaza. Soros – who is also a long-time Obama donor – must want a return on his investment.
This story hit the printed media in August. It is now October and the rest of the media is now coming onboard. They are coming onboard not because of the original housing bill but because of the massive bailout and stock market major fluctuations. The mark has been missed by most….now it is time to let everyone know why the markets keep erupting.
In my opinion markets are erupting because it is what George Soros wants. He is poised to put “his candidate” in the highest office of this country, The White House. It must be the last thing the American people do. Please stop Obama and Soros, or the USA will be destroyed. Your way of life will disappear. FISA will allow regular people to be “watched” for dissenting behavior. Wealth will be redistributed but not the way “low income” people think it will.
Be afraid folks, Soros has been trying this since 2000….first Gore, then Dean and now Obama….Think on November 4th, your future is at stake.
This is a rather disturbing pattern. Why haven’t these ineligible voters been purged from the voter rolls? Wasn’t this an issue in previous presidential elections? I am not trying to digress but the Elections Board in the Kansas Secretary of States office asked this question last week, where is there proof that felons vote Democratic? Here is the proof!
More from the Sentinel:
More than 30,000 Florida felons who by law should have been stripped of their right to vote remain registered to cast ballots in this presidential battleground state, a Sun Sentinel investigation has found.
Many are faithful voters, with at least 4,900 turning out in past elections.
Another 5,600 are not likely to vote Nov. 4 — they’re still in prison.
Of the felons who registered with a party, Democrats outnumber Republicans more than two to one.
Here is a statement from Florida’s Secretary of State:
Florida’s elections chief, Secretary of State Kurt Browning, acknowledged his staff has failed to remove thousands of ineligible felons because of a shortage of workers and a crush of new registrations in this critical swing state.
Browning said he was not surprised by the newspaper’s findings.“I’m kind of shocked that the number is as low as it is,” he said.
Asked how many ineligible felons may be on Florida’s rolls, Browning said, “We don’t know.”
The Division of Elections has a backlog of more than 108,000 possible felons who have registered to vote since January 2006 that it hasn’t had the time or staff to verify. Browning estimated that about 10 percent, once checked, would be ineligible.
What has the Secretary of State in Florida been doing with his time? Is he going to appoint more people to clean up the rolls or allow wholesale voter fraud in November?
The law pre-dates the Civil War as seen in the following excerpt from the Sentinel:
Florida’s felon ban originated before the Civil War, and today the state remains one of 10 that restrict some felons from voting even after they’ve served their time. The law requires state and county elections officials to remove felons from voter rolls after conviction and add them only when they’ve won clemency to restore their voting rights.
In 2007, the state eased the restrictions by granting automatic clemency to most nonviolent offenders who have completed their sentences. Others, including people convicted of federal offenses, multiple felonies or crimes such as drug trafficking, murder and sex charges, must still apply for clemency and have their cases reviewed.
The Sentinel unearthed names of some more famous felons who remain on the voter rolls:
The felons the Sun Sentinel identified never received clemency, but their names remain on Florida’s voter rolls. Some are well-known: ex-Broward Sheriff Ken Jenne and ex-Palm Beach County Commissioner Tony Masilotti, for instance, both convicted last year of public corruption.
Browning said the state painstakingly checks all voters before removing them to avoid inadvertently taking off eligible voters as happened in two previous large-scale purge attempts.
“The policy of this department, this state, is that we will err on the side of the voter,” he said.
Err on the side of the voter. The Florida is clear, take the felons off the rolls. Read more »
Another excellent post from Texas Hill Country……and everything he says is so true! Thank you Tex for your excellent words!
Posted on October 12, 2008 by Texas Hill Country
Fiction.
It is what Barack Obama is best at.
His life story… fiction. His record… fiction. And donors and voter registrations… fiction.
Obama’s father was not just a “goat farmer.” Obama Sr’s father was a major landowner in Kenya, incredibly wealthy and very powerful. Grandpa Hussein Obama’s (from whom Obama Jr gets his middle name) wealth and power is why Obama Sr. was awarded the scholarship to an American University. Sr eventually became a Harvard educated economist who became a part of the Kenyatta regime in Kenya, one of the most brutal governments in modern history.
Obama did not grow up poor. His grand parents were upper middle class, Obama Sr was very well off, Lolo Sotero was VERY wealthy and Obama attended the best Prep School in Hawaii, followed by the crown jewels of the American university system.
Michelle did not grow up poor. She grew up in a middle class neighborhood and while it was on the Southern end of Chicago, it was most certainly not the projects. She had a very nice home in a middle class working neighborhood.
Obama was not born as a result of Selma or the Kennedy Airlift. The Kennedy Airlift that Obama claimed brought his father to the United States started a year after his father arrived in Hawaii. Selma happened years after Obama was born.
Obama has never published anything except for 1 unsigned and heavily edited note in the Harvard Law review and 2 autobiographies… a nearly impossible feat for anyone who claims to have been in Academia and a “constitutional law professor.”
Obama’s status as having graduated “Magna Cum Laude” is not that stupendous… Unlike most schools, where MCL’s comprise the top 10% of graduates, at Harvard… it’s the top 20%. That means that with an average graduating class of 600 or so out of Harvard, he could have been #120. And hell, you get Cum Laude at Harvard if you are in the top 50%.
Obama was not the first African American editor of the Harvard Law Review… there were two others before him. There are also many many editors of the Harvard Law Review each year, not to mention the fact that at the time, you did not become an editor at the Harvard Law Review because of grades or accomplishments. He was given the title “editor” of the HLR because he won a writing contest.
No one knows what Obama’s grades were like. He has not released his school records. He has had nothing published. Classmates at Columbia don’t even remember him and he didn’t even appear in the yearbook.
During his years as a “community organizer” he accomplished basically nothing. He had 2 accomplishments in total. He got people sign a petition to open up a summer jobs office for teens on the Southside of Chicago as a supplement to the on that was located downtown, and he had people sign another petition to have the city remove asbestos from a building. In both instances, the city gave in immediately. Other than that, Obama taught “get out the vote” classes to ACORN volunteers. Yes… that ACORN.
Obama pretends that he was a one man legislating machine while in the Illinois Senate. Obama did not pass one bill for his first 5 years in office. He only started passing legislation when the head of the legislature took him under his wing and literally put Obama’s name on bills the day of the vote. Read more »
Interesting breaking news from Israpundit: “Prosecutor Fitzgerald Could Send Obama To Jail”. It seems that Rezko is really singing like a jailed bird but not just about Governor Blagojevich, but about “the Giannoulias family and its longtime “business dealings” in Chicago”.
I always believed that Rezko would sing like a bird if he was found guilty. Israpundit disagrees but that is okay. Disagreement can really make the world turn. Rezko didn’t disappoint me, not like so many others have this year. Is this a good thing? I don’t know because at this time it is difficult to tell whether Rezko knows enough to unhinge Obama’s presidential aspirations.
More from Israpundit:
The Sun Times today gave a major clue that Barack Obama will indeed go down with Tony Rezko, sooner rather than later. It looks as though Rezko is about to turn on Alexi Giannoulias, the 30-year old State Treasurer of Illinois (who was elected only because Obama backed him).
Here’s where all the clues are…and then we’ll walk you through the local Chicago politics on how today’s hint by the Sun Times has us convinced, for the first time ever, that prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald could indeed send Barack Obama to jail.
We need to repeat that: we never believed, until now, that Obama would go to jail for anything related to Rezko. Today, this breaking news about what Rezko is singing to the Feds about makes us reconsider all of that.
Barack Obama will serve a prison sentence in the next few years — because knowing Fitzgerald, there is no reason he would be going through all of this if that was not the targeted goal in the long term.
(1) Michael Sneed in her Sun Times column 10/10/08 had the following tidbit:
Sneed hears rumbles political fund-raiser/fixer Tony Rezko, who is now singing sweetly to the feds from his cell at the Metropolitan Correctional Center, has been talking about his “dealings” with a Chicago bank, which has political connections.
(2) We just spoke with someone well-connected in Chicago politics who told us that the bank Sneed is talking about has to be Broadway Bank, which is owned by the politically-connected Giannoulias family. We were told that Sneed’s column confirms rumblings people we know heard independently that Tony Rezko is giving up the Giannoulias family to Patrick Fitzgerald — Rezko and the Giannoulias family are as close and tied together as anyone in Chicago could be. If Rezko is turning on them, then Rezko is going to give up Governor Rod Blagojevich and Obama too.
We don’t want to end up in cement shoes for implying anything here, but if you live in Chicago for any length of time, you hear rumors about Broadway Bank, the Giannoulias family, and insert Tony Soprano references here. Kapeech?
(3) So, Rezko is singing about the Giannoulias family and its longtime “business dealings” in Chicago, which would interest someone like Fitzgerald and the Justice Department, who have had a long ambition to crack Soprano-style business dealings in Chicago (the city known for Al Capone hasn’t changed much, really). The next plate to drop in this will be Fitzgerald then leaning on the Giannoulias family to give up someone bigger than them, who Fitzgerald once discussed in terms of hoping “he has the morals to do the right thing”, to paraphrase. We now believe that person Fitz was talking about is Barack Obama.
(4) The Giannoulias family was involved with Obama as far back as his first state senate campaign in 1996. It has been long rumored here in Chicago that Obama obtained a sweetheart deal on his first town home here in Chicago — which he could not have afforded otherwise — and guess who the financing came from for that house? We’ve been told it was Broadway Bank, the Giannoulias bank. Now, this sets up a scenario where the Giannoulias family helps Obama with his campaign finances and gets him deeper in their pocket with his sweetheart mortgage deal (for the first home he owned that he could not afford) – all in exchange for quid pro quo to be determined later.
(5) One favor political Chicago claims Obama did for the Giannoulias family was in 2006 when, out of the blue, 29 year old Alexi Giannoulias, with no experience, and without ever having voted before, decides to run for State Treasurer of Illinois. Also out of the blue, Barack Obama endorses Alexi Giannoulias for State Treasurer. This was a SHOCK to everyone in Chicago — and Giannoulias would have never become State Treasurer without Obama’s help. In political circles here, it has always been believed that this endorsement was bought years ago with that sweetheart mortgage deal Broadway Bank arranged for Obama to buy his town house.
(6) So, the Tony Rezko sweetheart deal was not the first magic home loan Obama ever received to buy a house he could not afford.
All I have to say if Rezko is singing about a certain Chicago bank, how sweet it is. There is nothing I wanted more than Rezko telling his stories to Patrick Fitzgerald, United States Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois. This man is a pit bull. I mean that in the nicest terms. Read more »
Apparently Auers isn’t just an unrepentant terrorist, he wears a ring made from a downed American fighter jet from Vietnam. I read about this in an article from Pat Dollard, Young American’s Documentary and it made me angry. I am angry because many of my friends are Vietnam veterans and because I am a veteran…
Read on:
What if a member of Al Qaeda presented you with a very special ring made from the metal of a United States Marine Corps Humvee that was destroyed by an IED he made and detonated?
What would you think of an American citizen who would be so honored by such a gesture that he wept, and wore the ring with pride, thinking to himself that his country, America, was evil?
Or what would you think of an American who admired, worked with, and shared information with an Iraqi Translator who worked in Baghdad and was passing U.S. Military secrets and information to members of the Mahdi Army?
Would you feel this person was a patriotic American? Would you feel comfortable sending your children to a class he taught in an American University? How about a friend of his who wants to be President of the United States, and launches the first steps of his political career from his living room?
I can answer all those questions. Without a doubt my reactionon the surface would be the hurt and pain in my heart. Why? Because a man, Obama, has these kind of despicable friends. These are his buddies. Ayers and Dohrn are worse that I could possibly imagine. Read more »
More reports of massive voter fraud in Indiana of all places. I believe it was last week when there was a report of 105% voter registration in Indianapolis.
Here is an excerpt from Outside the Beltway in their article, “Indianapolis Voter Registration at 105%”:
Voter registration is at record levels and new registrations are coming at a torrid pace. Indeed, Paul Ogden does the math and figures that voter registration in Indianapolis and Marion County has exceeded 105 percent of the over-eighteen population, which is quite a feat!
The New York Post had an interesting story yesterday about the fear an Obama presidency puts in the heart of the markets. It s title, “AN OBAMA PANIC? MARKETS FEAR HIS POLICIES” by CHARLES GASPARINO.
Here is the opening statement. It isn’t really favorable to McCain, but it does highlight the fear Obama is causing.
Barack Obama has remained cool and confident amid the financial melt down, even as John McCain at times has been embarrassing, lurching from one proposal to the next. But while the polls are reflecting Obama’s steady hand, the markets haven’t. In fact, they’re getting worse by the day as Obama’s lead widens.
The stability of the markets depends on the next president and his policies. McCain needs to come up with one quick before Obama wins this election….21 days to go. More from the post:
Of course, the market turmoil is first a reflection of grim reality – the bursting of the housing bubble and the billions upon billions in writedowns and losses that have forced upon the hugely leveraged financial firms companies that had cranked big profits during the bubble years.
The resulting credit crunch is hitting Main Street harder than ever before. The country is headed for recession; the only question is: Just how low can the markets and economy go?
It could be a lot lower – it all depends on the policies of the next president.
I am certainly scared. Although our investments are small, Obama’s capital gains tax and dividend tax increases will kill us. We are the middle class and represent a good portion of the American citizens who invest. Many of those investments are 401ks. Read more »
According to James Terry in an e-mail to me directly, four ACORN whistleblowers have come forward with testimony of misuse of taxpayer money. His e-mail verified an earlier e-mail I received as well as the Newsmax story. The story is in Newsmax, “More ACORN Fraud Exposed: ACORN Whistleblowers”.
Here is an excerpt from the Newsmax article:
The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) bills itself as a non-partisan group, supported by tax-exempt contributions from individuals and corporations.
The ACORN Housing Corp. (AHC), an ACORN affiliate, receives more than 40 percent of its funding from government sources, ostensibly to promote affordable housing to low- and middle-income families.
But according to CRL, internal documents obtained from whistleblowers suggest that ACORN has failed to maintain the proper distinction between its tax-exempt housing work and its aggressive political activities.
“ACORN and its offshoots take in millions of dollars in government grants under the guise of ‘consumer advocacy’ to line their own pockets,” said Jim Terry, CRL’s chief public advocate.
The new testimony, from four former ACORN and AHC employees, provides “hard confirmation” that ACORN and its affiliate are in fact one in the same, Terry told Newsmax.
“Here are people who have been in the room, testifying to the criminal intent of the people involved” in shuffling ACORN resources from tax-exempt purposes to political activities, he said.
“Everything they do and say, with the exception of filing their government reports, treats this family of organizations as one cohesive unit. They operated as one organization, controlled from the top down,” Terry said.
One former employee, who was with ACORN for six years, including in a management position, testified that she has “knowledge that AHC has subsidized and believe that AHC continues to subsidize ACORN activities,” in apparent violation of the law.
“AHC subsidies to ACORN include office telephone service, fax, supplies and rental space paid for by AHC funds,” she added.
In addition, AHC management routinely treated federal grants as money that could be shared with ACORN, Terry told Newsmax.
“Between 2004 through 2006, AHC transferred $4.6 million to ACORN in grants and fees, according to their tax returns. This is inherently wrong.”
Since 40 percent of AHC funds came from government grants, that means that U.S. taxpayers were in effect paying for ACORN’s partisan political activities, he added.
AHC required employees to “solicit funds and cash from clients and real estate professionals to pay for AHC operations,” one of the whistleblowers said, detailing what amounted to a “shakedown” operation.
Another former AHC employee said he would testify in court to the fact that “AHC and ACORN have operated as one entity,” and quoted internal e-mails detailing how federal grants were shared between the organizations.
The whistleblowers also stated that:
# AHC employees were instructed to hide documents from federal auditors with the Department of Housing and Urban Development.
# AHC employees were instructed on “steering” loans to partner banks, including Chase (for loans in the New Orleans area) and Bank of America for other areas around the country.
# AHC National Field Director Lee Trujillo stated in the presence of several of these witnesses that “AHC and ACORN would be funded out of the same account.”
# AHC and ACORN have also shared “voter initiative money.”
# Internal AHC e-mails and other documents “clearly show that AHC is paying for lease space occupied by ACORN.”
All of these are potential violations of the laws governing non-profit organizations.
I am going to do two things in this article, cover Obama’s retirement plan and an overview on 401k loans because I listened to Obama on retirement savings, realizing he doesn’t have a clue. Here is Obama’s plan from The New York Times:
He said he would seek to allow Americans of all ages to borrow from retirement savings without a tax penalty.
Allowing loans within a 401k plan is allowed by law, but an employer is not required to do so. Many small business just can’t afford the high cost of adding this feature to their plan. Even so, loans are a feature of most 401k plans. If offered, an employer must adhere to some very strict and detailed guidelines on making and administering them.
The statutes governing plan loans place no specific restrictions on what the need or use will be for loans, except that the loans must be reasonably available to all participants. But an employer can restrict the reasons for loans. Many only allow them for the following reasons: (1) to pay education expenses for yourself, spouse, or child; (2) to prevent eviction from your home; (3) to pay un-reimbursed medical expenses; or (4) to buy a first-time residence. The loan must be paid back over five years, although this can be extended for a home purchase. (Note from author: In some 401ks, the maximum payback length is 5 years but can be as little as 1 year.)
If a participant has had no other plan loan in the 12 month period ending on the day before you apply for a loan, they are usually allowed to borrow up to 50% of their vested account balance to a maximum of $50,000. If the participant had another plan loan in the last 12 month period, they will be limited to 50% of their vested account balance, or $50,000, minus the outstanding loan balance in the preceding 12-month period, whichever is less.
Because of the cost, many plans will also set a minimum amount (often $1,000) and restrict the number of loans any participant may have outstanding at any one time. (Some 401ks allow a maximum of 2 loans at one time.)
Loan payments are generally be deducted from payroll checks and, if the participant is married, they may need their spouse to consent to the loan.
While interest rates vary by plan, the rate most often used is what is termed the “prime rate” plus one percent. The current “prime rate” can be found in the business section of your local newspaper or the Wall Street Journal.
Funds obtains from a loan are not subject to income tax or the 10% early withdrawal penalty (unless the loan defaults). If the participant should terminate employment, often any unpaid loan will be distributed to them as income. The amount will then be subject to income tax and may also be subject to 10% withdrawal penalty. A loan can’t be rolled over to an IRA.
Just because you can obtain a loan from your plan doesn’t mean it is always the best idea. So before sticking your hand in the cookie jar, you should consider the “pros and cons,” some of which may surprise you. And remember, the purpose of a 401k plan is to fund your retirement, so don’t shortchange your golden years by treating it as a checking account.
From the overview:
One more time.
Funds obtains from a loan are not subject to income tax or the 10% early withdrawal penalty (unless the loan defaults). If the participant should terminate employment, often any unpaid loan will be distributed to them as income. The amount will then be subject to income tax and may also be subject to 10% withdrawal penalty.
And what is Obama’s plan?
He said he would seek to allow Americans of all ages to borrow from retirement savings without a tax penalty.
Americans of all ages can already borrow from retirement savings (401ks) without a tax penalty. The only penalty occurs when unpaid loans remain upon termination of employment.
Obama’s retirement loan plan offers nothing new to Americans because it is already exists in the laws surrounding 401ks.
Update:
There are plans and discussions underway in Congress to find a way to tax your 401ks and IRAs because they view these accounts as wasted because they are not taxed. And Obama supports this as another means of wealth redistribution. Take the retirement accounts away from hard working Americans and give it in the form of tax welfare….not tax cuts!
A wide range of sweeping changes to the 401(k) system were proposed Tuesday at a hearing on how the market crisis has devastated retirement savings plans.
Chief among them was eliminating $80 billion in tax savings for higher-income people enrolled in 401(k) retirement savings plans.
This was suggested by the chairman of the House Committee on Education and Labor.
“With respect to the 401(k), it appears to be a plan that is not really well-devised for the changes in the market,” Rep. George Miller, D-Calif., said.
“We’ve invested $80 billion into subsidizing this activity,” he said, referring to tax breaks allowed for 401(k) contributions and savings.
With savings rates going down, “what do we have to start to think about in Congress of whether or not we want to continue and invest that $80 billion for a policy that is not generating what we … say it should?” Mr. Miller said.
Congress should let workers trade their 401(k) assets for guaranteed retirement accounts made up of government bonds, suggested Teresa Ghilarducci, an economics professor at The New School for Social Research in New York.
When workers collected Social Security, the guaranteed retirement account would pay an inflation-adjusted annuity under her plan.
“The way the government now encourages 401(k) plans is to spend $80 billion in tax breaks,” which goes to the highest-income earners, Ms. Ghilarducci said.
That simply results in transferring money from taxed savings accounts to untaxed accounts, she said.
“If we implement automatic [individual retirement accounts] or if we expand the 401(k) system, all we’re doing is adding to this inefficiency,” Ms. Ghilarducci said.
Pay attention! Anyone who has a 401k will lose it to taxation! Now Obama and his cabal of Democrats in Congress are trying to take away our retirement accounts! And another thing I don’t want the government telling me what I can buy (government bonds) for my retirement.
Fellow freepers, can someone get this to the McCain dudes. If Obozo wins, we are going to lose our 401k’s. They will be taxed away and or used to shore-up social security. These thieves will say it is the ‘fair’ thing to do…
I am including an update on this piece I wrote because I have another reference piece for you to read. The piece and quote come from Investment News.
“If the tax deferral goes away, the employers have no reason to do the matches, which primarily help people in the lower income brackets,” Mr. Belluardo said.
“This is a battle between liberalism and conservatism,” said Christopher Van Slyke, a partner in the La Jolla, Calif., advisory firm Trovena LLC, which manages $400 million. “People are afraid because their accounts are seeing some volatility, so Democrats will seize on the opportunity to attack a program where investors control their own destiny,” he said.
The Profit Sharing/ 401(k) Council of America in Chicago, which represents employers that sponsor defined contribution plans, is “staunchly committed to keeping the employee benefit system in American voluntary,” said Ed Ferrigno, vice president in the Washington office.
“Some of the tenor [of the hearing last week] that the entire system should be based on the activities of the markets in the last 90 days is not the way to judge the system,” he said.
No legislative proposals have been introduced and Congress is out of session until next year.
However, most political observers believe that Democrats are poised to gain seats in both the House and the Senate, so comments made by the mostly Democratic members who attended the hearing could be a harbinger of things to come.
The most important part of the quote is the first line. Any of these proposed changes in my opinion would certainly halt employer matches to employees savings. In short chances are an employee would stop saving too!
I will say this agin, I do not and you should not want the government to have any part of your retirement savings. The Democratic Party (Socialist Party) leadership in Congress wants the following:
Under Ms. Ghilarducci’s plan, all workers would receive a $600 annual inflation-adjusted subsidy from the U.S. government but would be required to invest 5% of their pay into a guaranteed retirement account administered by the Social Security Administration. The money in turn would be invested in special government bonds that would pay 3% a year, adjusted for inflation.
The current system of providing tax breaks on 401(k) contributions and earnings would be eliminated.
“I want to stop the federal subsidy of 401(k)s,” Ms. Ghilarducci said in an interview. “401(k)s can continue to exist, but they won’t have the benefit of the subsidy of the tax break.”
This plan means bigger government. Stop the Democratic Party leadership in Congress. Don’t allow them to get a stranglehold on our retirement accounts. Vote McCain…he isn’t willing to bet our retirement dollars on a larger government.
I am wholly disappointed in the Department of Justice for sure! It turns out it isn’t our ahem! esteemed DOJ filing charges. These charges are coming from a think tank…I never even considered it would be The Buckeye Institutefor Public Policy Solutions of Columbus, OH. This information has just been released today by the institute. Here is more on those charges:
The Buckeye Institute, a Columbus-based think tank, today filed a state RICO action against the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) on behalf of two Warren County voters. The action filed in Warren County Court of Common Pleas alleges ACORN has engaged in a pattern of corrupt activity that amounts to organized crime. It seeks ACORN’s dissolution as a legal entity, the revocation of any licenses in Ohio, and an injunction against fraudulent voter registration and other illegal activities.
It still distresses me that it is a state action not a federal action. Where is the US Department of Justice on ACORN? As far as I can tell missing-in-action.
More from the Institute:
Plaintiffs Jennifer Miller of Mason, Ohio and Kimberly Grant of Loveland, allege that ACORN’s actions deprive them of the right to participate in an honest and effective elections process. They allege fraudulent voter registrations submitted by ACORN dilute the votes of legally registered voters.
“The right to cast a vote that is not diluted by fraudulent votes is a fundamental individual right,” Buckeye Institute President David Hansen said.
“ACORN appears to be recklessly disregarding Ohio laws and adding thousands of fraudulent voters to the state’s roles in the process,” Maurice Thompson, Director of the Buckeye Institute’s 1851 Center for Constitutional Law said. “Such voter fraud erodes the value of legally cast votes,” he added.
In the complaint, Thompson cites an accumulation of evidence showing numerous instances of admitted fraud by ACORN employees, as well as individuals solicited by ACORN.
“In light of its hiring, training and compensation practices, ACORN should have known its conduct would cause fraud,” Thompson said. “It also should know that its conduct will cause fraud in the future.”
In addition, the complaint cites conduct by ACORN in Colorado, Indiana, Louisiana, Michigan, Missouri, Nevada, New Mexico, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Texas, Virginia, Washington and Wisconsin.
A full copy of the complaint is available online at Buckeye Institute here
Buckeye does have a mission and is completeing it in Ohio.
The Buckeye Institute for Public Policy Solutions, together with its 1851 Center for Constitutional Law, is a nonpartisan research and educational institute devoted to individual liberty, economic freedom, personal responsibility and limited government in Ohio.
All I can say is I am glad someone is doing something to knee-cap ACORN. Good one for The Buckeye Institute. Where is the Department of Justice? Are you out there somewhere? Are you doing your job? Where are the federal RICO charges?
A fundraiser with Gov Sarah Palin was noted by The New York Times in their article, “Clinton Supporters Aid Palin”, it was a Who’s Who of Hillraisers. In attendance were the following Clinton fundraisers, Lady Lynn Forester de Rothschild, a former telecommunications entrepreneur and “Hillraiser”, Calvin Fayard, also a former Hillraiser and longtime Democratic donor from Louisiana, Miguel Lausell, a former senior political adviser to the Clinton campaign from Puerto Rico and John Coale, a former Hillraiser, Washington lawyer and husband of Fox News television host Greta Van Susteren.
More from the Times on an extended evening of fundraising for the McCain/Palin ticket:
The reception, which organizers said brought in more than $500,000, was part of an extended evening of fund-raising for Ms. Palin and Senator John McCain’s presidential campaign at the Grand Hyatt in New York that officials estimated raised more than $8 million.
Ms. Palin, along with her husband, Todd, mingled and posed for pictures with the group of about 20, before appearing at the larger finance event, which McCain campaign officials said was the last time Mr. McCain would personally appear at a fund-raiser before the election. It was also the first time the pair had appeared together for donors.
Good on them I say. It was time for Sarah to meet Hillraisers who are now supporting their ticket. Her and Senator McCain are very fortunate, their stars are attached to former Hillary supporters who were disillusioned by the “Democratic Party”.
More from the article:
While Mrs. Clinton has implored her former supporters to back Senator Barack Obama, some still harbor ill will towards him, organizers said.
“These people want to give their vote of disapproval,” said Mr. Lausell. “This is a way they’re doing it.”
I agree Mr. Lausell as do many other former Hillary supporters.
The 6th Circuit Court of Appeals reverses itself. In a vote by the full panel vote (en banc) they reinstated the temporary restraining order against Ohio Secretary of State Brunner. This is a win for the good side. Here is the information courtesy of Darke Blog:
Here are some highlights:
“So far as this record is concerned, the Secretary has given no tenable exlanation why her current interpretation of the statute, as opposed to the office’s prior implementation of the law, remotely furthers the anti-fraud objective of the law.”
The Ohio Republican Party’s position is “not only sensible but it is also fair – and it also furthers both objectives of HAVA …”
The court mocks Brunner’s defense as “[t]he bureaucrats’ lament – that this will be difficult to do.”
Here are the three updates to the story also available from Darke Blog:
UPDATE: In looking at the decision, it appears the full court voted 9-6 to hear the case en banc (which means all of them). I’d say the 9-6 vote is a good sign, but doesn’t necessarily mean the case will end that way. Tonight’s decision has been described as the opportunity to “live and fight another day.” But in the world of temporary restraining orders, if you have it, that’s all that matters for the time being. And the time being is what is crucial right now.
Second point – the initial district court decision got some press because the judge found that Brunner was actually violating the law. That dialogue was snuffed out by the subsequent reversal. But now it’s back. When you run into Jennifer Brunner on the street, you can ask her why she’s violating federal election laws.
UPDATE 3: Laura did a pdf link which you bloggers can use to cut-and-paste.
Cincinnati.com also addressed this issue. Here are some excerpts from their article, “Court casts doubt on Ohio voter rolls”:
Republican John McCain’s campaign on Tuesday said Obama should rein in ACORN’s mass registration efforts to fight voter fraud. The campaign accuses Obama of having close ties to the group.
Late in the day – in a victory for Republicans – the full Cincinnati-based 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned a decision made last week by three of its members. The result: Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner must create computer programs to cross check all new voter registrations so that county boards of elections can double check new registrants.
The Secretary of State will now have to verify new registrations by comparing information on them with data from the Ohio Bureau of Motor Vehicles or the Social Security Administration. (They do that here in Kansas plus check Department of Justice rolls and Department of Corrections rolls. It is a felony for felons still on parole to register to vote in Kansas.)
“As far as we can tell, the problem with the current system (of cross-checking) is not that it is insufficiently user-friendly, but that it is effectively useless,” wrote Judge Jeffrey Sutton, writing for the majority.
The court split 9-6 along mostly partisan lines. The only appeal would be to the U.S. Supreme Court, and it wasn’t clear Tuesday night if that would happen.
A great friend of mine BJ is my guest for the day. This post is cross posted from her blog Free-Me-Now.
What’s this I hear; Obama supporters are complaining that McCain supporters are getting a little testy with them? Well it’s about time! Just like their illustrious leader they are bullies- when you stand up to a bully they go running home crying because somebody stood up to them! All I can say is – they ought not to have started something they were not tough enough to finish.
There are angry and ready to rumble Mc Cain supporters out there and I could easily become one of them. I am being driven toward it – propelled daily by the hate mongering Obama supporters who have for 2 years antagonized, bashed, battered and harassed us. They have laughed in our faces believing they have this in the bag, thinking their party can not possibly lose. They have this ace – errrr – race card up their sleeve and it seems to trump all other cards. And up to now it seems to have worked.
They have called us racists, have intimidated us and now are trying to steal this election and our very democracy from us. Just today on the street I was accused of being a racist simply for having a sign that read “Democrat for McCain” and my friend was called a racist, her sign read “Women for McCain and Palin”
Do they take us for fools? Do they think we have short memories? Do they think our women are that short sighted, that they have no dignity or pride? Do they think our men have no dignity and or pride in their wives, mothers or daughters?
Yes there are hate mongering supporters, but it is not something that John McCain started this week as the main stream media and the Obama camp would have you believe. No No No – this angry angst that you are witnessing from McCain supporters is the result of frustration these American citizens feel as they watch their democracy slip through their fingers while the media blindly reports racism where none exists and allows blatant sexism to rage on unchecked.
Every time Obama is questioned – about anything – it’s a lynching according to the Obamabots, the pundits and bought and paid for media stooges. This has been going on since Obama entered his name into the race. No one has been able to ask him anything about anything. First Hillary and now Sarah have been treated in the most despicable way imaginable. How can we go out into this world preaching against sexism, women’s rights and human rights when we are the worst offenders? Any country that allows their women to be humiliated in this fashion has absolutely no standing to preach to any other country regarding women’s rights.
Congressman Lewis claims McCain and Palin are sewing the seeds of hate in their supporters? Has he seen and heard Obama supporters? In Philly the people on the streets wore derogatory shirts and yelled ’stone’ her! I believe that amounts to a threat on her life! At a hockey game televised worldwide she was booed – how classy! Obama supporters have been very effective at crashing Hillary meetings over the past 18 months causing disruptions. I’ve been assaulted therein myself and now they do the same to Sarah. Congressman, your bias is showing.
Mr. Lewis if you missed that, are you aware of the Obama Celebs- they are notorious. Jay Z; Ludacris; Madonna, Sandra Bernhard: Obama Supporter Threatens Sarah Palin With Gang Rape is that acceptable to you? Read about that here and I expect your comments on these supporters forthcoming sir.
In a country where racism is not tolerated we apparently not only tolerate sexism we make it into a thriving business! Congressman Lewis before you start accusing McCain and Palin of anything at this late stage maybe you should have spoken up about 2 years ago when Obama, his campaign or the party or the media or anyone for that matter did not stop his supporters from what they did to Hillary and are now doing to Sarah. Where is your outrage about this you damned hypocrite? Or don’t white girls’ have civil rights that matter to you?
Let’s hear from you Congressman Lewis. Let’s hear from you Al Sharpton, Let’s hear from the rest of you screaming civil rights leaders. Women’s Rights are Human Rights aren’t they? Human Rights are Civil Rights aren’t they? Damned Hypocrites!
Tell me folks- what pictures, signs and shirt on the streets have you seen that cry racism? Have you actually seen anything or is it just race baiting instead. Let me show you what blatant looks like so you can recognize PURE damned SEXISM – not innuendo- not maybe- not my imagination – not my hysteria- not coincidence. Damn it -let me show you just a hint- not a lot just a hint of what I have seen on the streets for nearly two years that clearly cries Sexism.
Let’s look at yet another form of blatant sexism. Think about how they are trotting Hillary out all over the country not to pay down her own campaign debt but to raise money for Obama- yes Obama – her abuser and the highest money raiser in history . Sounds like they really want to stick it to us doesn’t it? Go out and raise money for the man and the party that abused you – beat you and cheated on you and do it with a smile honey!
Still feel like a Democrat? Still want to leave that Top of the ticket empty rather than vote against our beloved party do we? Sure go right ahead – help the Dems! They are really more on your side then Sarah Palin aren’t they? She’s gonna set you further back than that? Keep dreaming ladies – by my account ain’t nobody going set us further back than that. I will do everything in my power to stop the party and the man that did this to Her and to every woman who ever marched so that we could have the right to vote against the Democratic party on November 4th in protest for the way they treat women in America 160 years after our ancestors first stood up against these dirty bastards so that we would have a leg to stand upon now.
Grow up- take your place as a woman and finish the job our mothers and their mothers before them started- damn it!
Two Missourians say they were surprised to receive credit card statements indicating they had donated to Barack Obama’s presidential campaign.
Sandy Pogones of Camdenton and Steve Larman of North Kansas City each found a $2,300 charge on their credit card bills recently for the Obama for America campaign. Both say they do not support Obama and would not contribute to his campaign.
Both say they contacted their credit card companies, which dropped the charges.
Pogones says she also contacted the Missouri attorney general’s office and the FBI.
Larman says he just wants to know if another organization is funneling money to Obama, or if someone is using the Obama name to steal from people.
Which ever it is this just adds more questions to Obama’s “campaign financing” sources!
Obama shields ACORN from “Criminal Prosecution in the Economic Crisis” is a highlighted story with Canada Free Press, buyer beware, another law to protect ACORN from criminal prosecution. The only reason ACORN itself has only been prosecuted in Washington State isbecause the throw their employees under the bus when they are charged with fraud.
Here are highlights from that article:
Not only did Senator Barack Obama’s presidential campaign pay more than U.S. $800,000 to a front of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform, Now, ACORN, currently under investigation in a dozen States for voter registration fraud and bribery schemes, for “get-out-the-vote-efforts”; Obama co-sponsored legislation called the “Helping Families Save their Homes in Bankruptcy Act of 2007”– that was supported by ACORN and protects them.
And don’t think he is the only Democrat who did. The list of co-sponsors is a who who of Democrats.
Helping Families Save their Homes in Bankruptcy Act, S.2136, was introduced in the Senate by Illinois Senator Richard Durbin over a year ago, on October 3, 2007. It was co-sponsored, by Obama and 12 other Democrats, including Vice Presidential hopeful, Joe Biden, and Chairman of the Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee, Senator Christopher Dodd.
Give me a break. More Democrats protecting ACORN and other groups. There is more in this story, it tells how the bill protects them. And it involves The Truth In Lending Act (TILA)….the forms you receive when you buy a home.
More from CFP:
According to a Senate transcript, Durbin stated: “It is true that some families knowingly stretched a bit to buy more house than they should have. But many families were sold mortgages they couldn’t afford by unscrupulous brokers… This bill is supported by the AARP, ACORN, AFL-CIO and SEIU, the Center for Responsible Lending, the Consumer Federation of America, NAACP and La Raza, the National Association of Consumer Bankruptcy Attorneys, the National Community Reinvestment Coalition…”
Why would groups like ACORN, who according to Stanley Kurtz’s “O Dangerous Pals” undermined “the US economy by pushing the banking system into a sinkhole of bad loans…. by forcing banks to make hundreds of millions of dollars in “subprime” loans to often un-creditworthy poor and minority customers…” support this legislation? Perhaps because it provides Chapter 13 Bankruptcy protections to homeowners who didn’t have the means to buy homes, and it protects people who put those borrowers into these high-risk mortgages.
The numbers in Ohio are far worse than originally expected according to Yahoo News. Roughly 200,000 of the newly registered 600,000 voters have discrepancies in their social security numbers and/or driver’s license numbers. They will end up on end up on court-ordered lists being sent to county election boards…and need I remind you that Brunner didn’t want to check any registrations.
It is incumbent upon McCain to challenge all votes in November. More from Yahoo News:
Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner estimated that an initial review found that about 200,000 newly registered voters reported information that did not match motor-vehicle or Social Security records, Brunner spokesman Kevin Kidder said. Some discrepancies could be as simple as a misspelling, while others could be more significant.
“Things already are in motion to comply,” Kidder said. “We’re working to establish these processes on how we can make this work. The computer work actually began last week.”
Here is the exchange between Joe and Obama from ABC News and it is telling. He would bankrupt Joe before he could expand his “new” business, the one he is about to purchase. Here is the transcript:
(Note: All comments in italics are the opinions of the author.)
Outside Toledo, Ohio, on Sunday, Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., was approached by plumber Joe Wurzelbacher, a big, bald man with a goatee who asked Obama if he believes in the American dream.
“I’m getting ready to buy a company that makes 250 to 280 thousand dollars a year,” Wurzelbacher said. “Your new tax plan is going to tax me more, isn’t it?”
Obama said, “First off, you would get a 50% tax credit so you’d get a tax cut for your healthcare costs….. if your revenue is above 250 – then from 250 down, your taxes are going to stay the same. It is true that from 250 up – from 250 – 300 or so, so for that additional amount, you’d go from 36 to 39%, which is what it was under Bill Clinton. And the reason why we’re doing that is because 95% of small businesses make less than 250. So what I want to do is give them a tax cut. I want to give all these folks who are bus drivers, teachers, auto workers who make less, I want to give them a tax cut. And so what we’re doing is, we are saying that folks who make more than 250 that that marginal amount above 250 – they’re gonna be taxed at a 39 instead of a 36% rate.” (Tax increases do nothing to help the economy.)
Responded Wurzelbacher, “the reason I ask you about the American dream, I mean I’ve worked hard. I’m a plumber. I work 10-12 hours a day and I’m buying this company and I’m going to continue working that way. I’m getting taxed more and more while fulfilling the American dream.”
“Well,” said Obama, “here’s a way of thinking about it. How long have been a plumber?”
Wurzelbacher said 15 years.
Obama says, “Over the last 15 years, when you weren’t making 250, you would have been given a tax cut from me, so you’d actually have more money, which means you would have saved more, which means you would have gotten to the point where you could build your small business quicker than under the current tax code. So there are two ways of looking at it – I mean one way of looking at it is, now that you’ve become more successful through hard work – you don’t want to be taxed as much.”
“Exactly,” Wurzelbacher said.
Obama continued, “But another way of looking at it is 95% of folks who are making less than 250, they may be working hard too, but they’re being taxed at a higher rate than they would be under mine. So what I’m doing is, put yourself back 10 years ago when you were only making whatever, 60 or 70. Under my tax plan you would be keeping more of your paycheck, you’d be paying lower taxes, which means you would have saved…Now look, nobody likes high taxes.” (What does that mean?)
“No,” said Wurzelbacher.
“Of course not,” said Obama. “But what’s happened is that we end up – we’ve cut taxes a lot for folks like me who make a lot more than 250. We haven’t given a break to folks who make less, and as a consequence, the average wage and income for ordinary folks, the vast majority of Americans, has actually gone down over the last eight years. So all I want to do is – I’ve got a tax cut. The only thing that changes, is I’m gonna cut taxes a little bit more for the folks who are most in need and for the 5% of the folks who are doing very well – even though they’ve been working hard and I appreciate that – I just want to make sure they’re paying a little bit more in order to pay for those other tax cuts. Now, I respect the disagreement. I just want you to be clear – it’s not that I want to punish your success – I just want to make sure that everybody who is behind you – that they’ve got a chance at success too.” (Spreading the wealth reeks of socialism,)
Wurzelbacher said it seemed as though Obama might support a flat tax. (Obama doesn’t favor a flat tax because then everyone would have to pay taxes. He would no longer be able to award WELFARE through tax credits to people who have no tax liability.)
Obama says, “you know, I would be open to it except here’s the problem with a flat tax is that if you actually put a flat tax together, in order for it to work and replace all the revenue that we’ve got, you’d probably end up having to make it like about a 40% sales tax. I mean that’s the value added, making it up. Now some people say 23 or 25, but in truth when you add up all the revenue that would need to be raised, you’d have to slap on a whole bunch of sales taxes on. And I do believe for folks like me who have worked hard, but frankly also been lucky, I don’t mind paying just a little bit more than the waitress that I just met over there who’s things are slow and she can barely make the rent.” (I have no idea what he means here either. Some of that nuanced rhetoric again.)
Obama said, “My attitude is that if the economy’s good for folks from the bottom up, it’s gonna be good for everybody. If you’ve got a plumbing business, you’re gonna be better off if you’re gonna be better off if you’ve got a whole bunch of customers who can afford to hire you, and right now everybody’s so pinched that business is bad for everybody and I think when you spread the wealth around, it’s good for everybody.” (Socialism again.)
That’s the key moment McCain is jumping out…”when you spread the wealth around it’s good for everybody.”
“But listen,” Obama said, shaking Wurzelbacher’s hand, “I respect what you do and I respect your question, and even if I don’t get your vote, I’m still gonna be working hard on your behalf, because small businesses are what creates jobs in this country and I want to encourage it.”
“Guys I gotta get out of here and go prepare for the debate,” Obama said, “but that was pretty good practice right there.”
McCain has a plan to renegotiate interest rates on mortgages to save middle class homes, Obama thinks it is a give away. It isn’t a give away, McCain’s plan will save homes and not dump more foreclosures on an already “in the tank” housing market. This isn’t a present to banks, it is a present to the homeowner. An article on this subject is found at Yahoo News. More from the article:
John McCain said he’s disappointed that federal policy makers aren’t moving to adopt his $300 billion proposal to buy bad mortgages, a plan that Barack Obama said might end up being a “giveaway” to lenders.
“We’ve got to put the homeowners first,” McCain, the Republican presidential nominee, said during his third and final debate with Obama. “I am disappointed that Secretary Paulson and others have not made that their first priority.”
Obama, the Democratic nominee, said he agrees that homeowners need help, yet opposes the way McCain does it. “It could be a giveaway to banks,”Obama said tonight during the forum at Hofstra University in Hempstead, New York.
I said it before, Obama does not want to save your home. He sees it as a give away to banks. Renegotiating an interest rate on a mortgage will save the homeowner money with the banks making less in interest earnings. What part of that is a give away to banks? Obama hasn’t answered that question. In my opinion (and I am no economist) the homeowner wins and the banks wins, all go on to live for another day. Seems like a win-win situation to me.
It was brought to my attention yesterday that Obama voted “present” on mortgage reform….
Here is that story from The Wall Street Journal:
If Sen. Obama were truly looking for a kind of deregulation that might be responsible for the current financial crisis, he need only look back to 1998, when the Clinton administration ruled that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac could satisfy their affordable housing obligations by purchasing subprime mortgages. This ultimately made it possible for Fannie and Freddie to add a trillion dollars in junk loans to their balance sheets. This led to their own collapse, and to the development of a market in these mortgages that is the source of the financial crisis we are wrestling with today.
Finally, on the matter of deregulation and the financial crisis, Sen. Obama should consider his own complicity in the failure of Congress to adopt legislation that might have prevented the subprime meltdown.
In the summer of 2005, a bill emerged from the Senate Banking Committee that considerably tightened regulations on Fannie and Freddie, including controls over their capital and their ability to hold portfolios of mortgages or mortgage-backed securities. All the Republicans voted for the bill in committee; all the Democrats voted against it. To get the bill to a vote in the Senate, a few Democratic votes were necessary to limit debate. This was a time for the leadership Sen. Obama says he can offer, but neither he nor any other Democrat stepped forward.
Instead, by his own account, Mr. Obama wrote a letter to the Treasury Secretary, allegedly putting himself on record that subprime loans were dangerous and had to be dealt with. This is revealing; if true, it indicates Sen. Obama knew there was a problem with subprime lending — but was unwilling to confront his own party by pressing for legislation to control it. As a demonstration of character and leadership capacity, it bears a strong resemblance to something else in Sen. Obama’s past: voting present.
Now there should be no doubt he doesn’t want to save your house. When he the chance to stop the downward spiral of subprime mortgages and the increase in foreclosures, he wrote a letter. He didn’t even show leadership when he had a chance to support a bill that would have stopped this crisis. Obama is not the person we want in charge if there is another crisis of any kind.
Obama is not bi-partisan. Guess who spills the beans? None other than Governor David Patterson, New York state on MSNBC. Guess who asks the question? None other than Chris “Tweety” Matthews.
Listen to this video:
Governor Patterson couldn’t think of a single instance when Obama deliberately stepped across the aisle. Obama is indeed the most liberal senator in Congress.
According to Michelle Malkin, Palestra.net uncovered actual voter fraud in the State of Ohio by out of state Obama activists. WTF?
Here are excerpts from Malkin’s column and a link to the video Palestra.net made. Malkin on this fraud:
Something smells at 2885 Brownlee Avenue in Columbus, Ohio.
Here’s the stench: An entire houseful of young, non-Ohioan Democrat activists have used the Brownlee Avenue address to register themselves to vote in the Buckeye State and secure absentee ballots under extremely shady circumstances — all while mobilizing a large effort to register thousands of others for absentee and early voting. The activists are leaders of a group called “Vote From Home ‘08.” The group is self-identified as having “extensive experience with political organizing, election administration, and Democratic politics.” They were hailed as the “Justice League” by a Daily Kos blogger. Their Facebook page brags: “Want to turn the Presidential election blue in a key swing state? Vote from Home is a political organization that was founded by a team of young people for the purpose of assisting, aiding, and tracking voters to elect progressive candidates to the White House. Encouraged by the excitement of the 2008 elections and the movement around the Democratic candidates, Vote From Home will be in Ohio seeking to deliver 10,000 votes to Democratic candidates statewide.”
Palestra.net who has been doing am excellent job at tracking voter fraud in Ohio uncovered this fraud which breaks Ohio residency requirement laws. You can not register to vote under Ohio law if you are a temporary resident in that state. More from Malkin:
My friends at Palestra.net, a network of young reporters who have been doing the voter and registration fraud reporting that the MSM has been slow to do, have a breaking investigative report on how several members of the Democrat Vote From Home team — all Rhodes, Marshall, Fulbright, and Truman Scholars studying abroad — are turning up on Franklin County voter rolls despite having no bona fide residence in Ohio and admittedly having little to no knowledge about the state before descending on it in August to sign up other new voters in a rush to put 10,000 Obama supporters on the rolls.
These are supposed to be bright students. Apparently they aren’t because they all broke the law in the state of Ohio. Do you think they will be prosecuted? Do you think their ballots will be disallowed?
Not if the Ohio Secretaryof State Jennifer Brunner has anything to do with it!
Here’s the page listing the Vote From Home team. Take a good look at these three, for starters:
Here’s the Franklin County, Ohio registered voter search page.
Here’s just one of several Vote From Home activists, Daniel Hemel, who registered to vote with the Brownlee Ave. address listed as his “home:”
The Franklin County, Ohio site shows that Hemel was mailed an absentee ballot on October 1.
Palestra reporters Shelby Holliday and Tiffany Wilson visited the Vote From Home “home” in search of Hemel and were told that the Scarsdale, NY native and Harvard grad had returned to school — he’s a Marshall Scholar at Oxford University in England studying for an M.Phil in International Relations — and had no plans to return to Ohio.
You’ll recognize another of the names and faces from the Vote From Home team. This is Marc Gustafson, a driving force behind the effort and in front of the cameras:
He is also registered to vote in Franklin County, Ohio at the same Brownlee address and was mailed an absentee ballot on September 30:
He’s also the same activist Palestra reporter Shelby Holliday interviewed in her “Thug Thizzle” report. Gustafson’s the one who bragged about the free shuttle program for the homeless Ohioans for Obama:
“It’s a perfect opportunity for them to come in, register at a temporary address like a homeless shelter or a YMCA or something like that. They can register at that address because they don’t know where they’re going to be tomorrow or next week.”
Where’s Gustafson? Not in Ohio. He’s a Marshall Scholar at the Oxford University in England who worked as a field coordinator for the Howard Dean Campaign in Rhode Island, Iowa and New Hampshire. According to campaign contribution reports, he lists New York as his residence.
According to the Ohio Secretary of State’s page, you must be “a resident of Ohio for at least 30 days immediately before the election in which you want to vote.” The guidelines also state:
Generally, a person’s residence is the place where the person’s habitation is fixed (i.e., where the person lives on a permanent basis) and the place where the person intends to return
whenever the person is absent.
…a person’s temporary presence in Ohio, such as during a vacation or working in
Ohio on a temporary basis, does not make the person eligible to register and to vote in Ohio.
Gustafson’s friend and business partner, Heather Halstead, is another Vote From Home activist who shows up in Franklin County, Ohio voter rolls:
She is based in New York, went to Dartmouth for college, and lists New York as her residence in campaign contribution reports. No connection to Ohio other than the brief period she spent signing up others — and herself — to vote in the swing state.
Halstead was mailed an absentee ballot on September 30.
Vote From Home team member Jennifer Kyle, whose bio states that she works for ShoreBank International in the Washington, DC area, is also registered to vote in Franklin County, OH using the Brownlee address:
Kyle was mailed an absentee ballot on October 4.
Vote From Home team member Greg Nolan also used the Brownlee address to register to vote in Franklin County, OH:
He is based in Florida, where he attended college and was “active in Democratic politics,” and is headed to Stanford for graduate school. No ties to Ohio other than his brief stint working with Vote for Change.
And on and on it goes. Shelby at Palestra tells me that some 12 activists associated with Vote From Home may have fraudulently registered and that some have voted already. If they were this breathtakingly careless or brazenly reckless with their own registrations, imagine what damage they might have done in their voter registration drive — and what damage they may yet do in following through on absentee ballots with those voters.
Will the rest of the MSM pick up on the invaluable investigative reporting of Palestra’s intrepid young reporters? Or will they look the other way? Will out-of-town punks — all using 2885 Brownlee Ave. in Columbus as their ballot drop house — help turn Ohio blue? Will the Democrat Secretary of State, Jennifer Brunner, bury her head in the sand?
The ball is in the Ohio GOP’s court. Don’t drop it!
Michelle, Brunner is burying her head in the sand. She has now filed an emergency brief to the US Supreme Court trying to overturn the 6th US Circuit Court of Appeals. A court who felt so compelled by the blatant fraud and Brunner’s actions they met “en banc” (all members were present for the second vote) to force her to do her job. This is by far the most ludicrous election cycle I have ever seen. It has by far beat 2000 and we haven’t even voted yet! And it seems Former Senator John Danforth agrees with me.
href=”http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D93RNJOG2&show_article=1″>Breitbart says that the FBI has finally decided it is time to investigate ACORN. You have got to be kidding me. I think this investigation needed to start months ago. I forgot no one was paying attention until the MSM started screaming. And they had to wait until McCain mentioned them in a Presidential Debate. Wow! what has the USA come to?
Read more:
The FBI is investigating whether the community activist group ACORN helped foster voter registration fraud around the nation before the presidential election.
A senior law enforcement official confirmed the investigation to The Associated Press on Thursday. A second senior law enforcement official says the FBI was looking at results of recent raids on ACORN offices in several states for any evidence of a coordinated national scam.
Both officials spoke on condition of anonymity because Justice Department regulations forbid discussing ongoing investigations particularly so close to an election.
This is appears to be an investigation without legs…..How about RICO? How about misuse of taxpayer money? How about money laundering?
More from Breitbart:
ACORN, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, says it has registered 1.3 million young people, minorities and poor and working-class voters—most of whom tend to be Democrats.
Republican accusations about the group were raised during Wednesday’s presidential debate between Democrat Barack Obama and GOP candidate John McCain.
Some ACORN employees have been accused of submitting false voter registration forms—including some signed `Mickey Mouse’ or other fictitious characters.
Those voter registration cards have become the focus of fraud investigations in Nevada, Connecticut, Missouri and at least five other states. Election officials in Ohio and North Carolina also recently questioned the group’s voter forms.
And of course we have ACORN all but lying through their collective teeth. They have hired felons this year who have been charged with such things as identity fraud and let’s not forget indecent acts with a minor…..
ACORN has said the “vast majority” of its workers are conscientious, but some might have turned in duplicate applications or provided fake information to pad their pay. Workers caught submitting false information have been fired, ACORN officials say.
ACORN says laws in a number of states require it to submit all registration cards it collects even dubious ones, so its workers segregate applications with missing, suspicious or false information and flag them so state election officials can quickly check them further.
Right on dudes! We don’t believe you because county election boards in many states say your “dubious” cards cause them to spend more money and take time out of their other duties.
