ACORN did it before, are they doing it again?!

"Those who do not bother to learn history WILL repeat the lessons and learn through the mistakes"

ACORN - The common liberal / democrat comments about ACORN are that:

it's not a big issue,

it's only a few bad apples,

it's no big deal,

republicans are crying in advance of loosing the election

And there were never any problems in Chicago, "vote early vote often is just a joke", and so forth, and dead people never voted anywhere.

Well - I am not going to get into the Taft history here, because I could write from now till after the election about Chicago voter fraud, it's so well documented that even a congressman from Illinois can't argue that point.

But there is an election around the corner; ACORN has come up; and the same congressman from Illinois, who was once their attorney, gave them a large amount of money, and later had to revise his disclosures to correct what that money was for."

And maybe that report was as great a piece of fiction such as this nation has become immune to seeing.

What did he buy, who is this organization that he did spend campaign money on? - let's look at ACORN history in voter registrations:

from http://www.rottenacorn.com/activityMap.html

Recent Fraud

State	Year	Details
AR	1998	A contractor with ACORN-affiliated Project Vote was arrested for falsifying about 400 voter registration cards.
CO	2004	An ACORN employee admitted to forging signatures and registering three of her friends to vote 40 times.
CO	2005	Two ex-ACORN employees were convicted in Denver of perjury for submitting false voter registrations.
FL	2004	A Florida Department of Law Enforcement spokesman said ACORN was "singled out" among suspected voter registration groups for a 2004 wage initiative because it was "the common thread" in the agency's fraud investigations.
MI	2004	The Detroit Free Press reported that "overzealous or unscrupulous campaign workers in several Michigan counties are under investigation for voter-registration fraud, suspected of attempting to register nonexistent people or forging applications for already-registered voters." ACORN-affiliate Project Vote was one of two groups suspected of turning in the documents.
MO	2007	Four ACORN employees were indicted in Kansas City for charges including identity theft and filing false registrations during the 2006 election.
	2006	Eight ACORN employees in St. Louis were indicted on federal election fraud charges. Each of the eight faces up to five years in prison for forging signatures and submitting false information.
	2003	Of 5,379 voter registration cards ACORN submitted in St. Louis, only 2,013 of those appeared to be valid. At least 1,000 are believed to be attempts to register voters illegally.
NC	2004	North Carolina officials investigated ACORN for submitting fake voter registration cards.
NM	2005	Four ACORN employees submitted as many as 3,000 potentially fraudulent signatures on the group's Albuquerque ballot initiative. A local sheriff added: "It's safe to say the forgery was widespread."
NM	2004	An ACORN employee registered a 13-year-old boy to vote. Citing this and other examples, New Mexico State Representative Joe Thompson stated that ACORN was "manufacturing voters" throughout New Mexico.
OH	2007	A man in Reynoldsburg was indicted on two felony counts of illegal voting and false registration, after being registered by ACORN to vote in two separate counties.
	2004	A grand jury indicted a Columbus ACORN worker for submitting a false signature and false voter registration form. In Franklin County, two ACORN workers submitted what the director of the board of election supervisors called "blatantly false" forms. In Cuyahoga County, ACORN and its affiliate Project Vote submitted registration cards that had the highest rate of errors for any voter registration group.
MN	2004	During a traffic stop, police found more than 300 voter registration cards in the trunk of a former ACORN employee, who had violated a legal requirements that registration cards be submitted to the Secretary of State within 10 days of being filled out and signed.
PA	2008	An ACORN employee in West Reading, PA, was sentenced to up to 23 months in prison for identity theft and tampering with records. A second ACORN worker pleaded not guilty to the same charges and is free on $10,000 bail.
	2004	Reading's Director of Elections received calls from numerous individuals complaining that ACORN employees deliberately put inaccurate information on their voter registration forms. The Berks County director of elections said voter fraud was "absolutely out of hand," and added: "Not only do we have unintentional duplication of voter registration but we have blatant duplicate voter registrations." The Berks County deputy director of elections added that ACORN was under investigation by the Department of Justice.
TX	2004	ACORN turned in the voter registration form of David Young, who told reporters "The signature is not my signature. It's not even close." His social security number and date of birth were also incorrect.
VA	2005	In 2005, the Virginia State Board of Elections admonished Project Vote and ACORN for turning in a significant number of faulty voter registrations. An audit revealed that 83% of sampled registrations that were rejected for carrying false or questionable information were submitted by Project Vote. Many of these registrations carried social security numbers that exist for other people, listed non-existent or commercial addresses, or were for convicted felons in violation of state and federal election law. In a letter to ACORN, the State Board of Elections reported that 56% of the voter registration applications ACORN turned in were ineligible. Further, a full 35% were not submitted in a timely manner, as required by law. The State Board of Elections also commented on what appeared to be evidence of intentional voter fraud. "Additionally," they wrote, "information appears to have been altered on some applications where information given by the applicant in one color ink has been scratched through and re-entered in another color ink. Any alteration of a voter registration application is a Class 5 Felony in accordance with § 24.2-1009 of the Code of Virginia."
WA	2007	Three ACORN employees pleaded guilty, and four more were charged, in the worst case of voter registration fraud in Washington state history. More than 2,000 fraudulent voter registration cards were submitted by the group during a voter registration drive.
WI	2004	The district attorney's office investigated seven voter registration applications Project Vote employees filed in the names of people who said the group never contacted them. Former Project Vote employee Robert Marquise Blakely told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that he had not met with any of the people whose voter registration applications he signed, "an apparent violation of state law," according to the paper.

anyone smelling anything yet? - stay tuned

A WTF moment and interview on Troopergate

so - here is a WTF moment

- read the parts I found for you - and tell me you wouldn't be fired for what Monegan did and did not do

In the referenced interview he admits to behaving in a way that he was derelict in his duties, incompetent in his duties and either too stupid to have the job or willfully insubordinate.

- Palin's hubby gets upset - she is on the record as asking him to back off

you know you would not back of either if the misses asked you to

the cop was suspended and has many issues, not just with the Palin family - he is listed as a disgrace to the Alaskan troopers by more than on source.

The VP is screwed - no matter what she does, ANYONE can claim it influenced her decision

it's a "Chaz, when did you stop beating your wife" issue - Chaz - once accused, can never prove he did not

read this: http://www.adn.com/troopergate/story/555288.html

and http://www.aksuperstation.com/explorepolitics/26926989.html

"...In an unusual twist, she filed the ethics complaint against herself before the board, saying she hoped to "clear the air" by an inquiry through proper channels. She asked the board to decide if she broke ethics laws or acted improperly in dismissing Monegan or in dealing with Wooten -- basically the same ground Branchflower covered."

(Excuse me - sidebar comment - we should note that Obama never initiated an investigation on himself with his relations to buddy Bill, the terrorist)

"I'm gratified that the report confirmed what I said all along, that I had the authority to terminate Walt Monegan as public safety commissioner.

"I absolutely disagree that I violated state ethics law. In repeatedly complaining about trooper Mike Wooten, Todd and I were not pursuing a personal vendetta. We were trying to protect the integrity of the Alaska State Troopers from having an arrogant, almost-out-of-control law-breaker in their ranks. Because the action we were seeking was in the public interest, not purely our personal interest, there is no ethics law violation."

Enough from her - on the record - the Commissioner was deliberately insubordinate - if they put so much pressure on him to fire the cop, the same cop who in his own report drank while on duty, in a squad car, used excessive force, hunted illegally...

- why would he ask the governor sign off on a poster featuring that cop?

And if there was so much pressure

- how come he didn't even know what the cop looked like?

Since it's his job to protect the Governor, and she reported this cop as a threat

- why did he not know what the threat looked like?

read this interview, and tell me he's fit to be a Police Commissioner and keep a straight face

http://pursuingholiness.com/2008/10/13/monegans-big-blunder-asking-palin-to-autograph-wooten-poster/

"Commissioner Monegan committed a major blunder on May 15, 2008.

On that day, He submitted to her office a poster-boy photograph of a disreputable Alaskan Trooper for the Governor to sign and present at the Police Memorial Day honoring the Troopers. The Governro declined to sign the poster and refused to attend the Police Memorial Day.

Here is the excerpt from page 39 of the report.

He did what?

You have to be kidding me, right?

Let me read that one again, slowly!

The Commissioner dropped off a color poster photograph of Trooper Wooten. A trooper he claims that he was being pressured to fire. A trooper he claims he was pressured to fire since the first day of his job. A job he felt he was going to lose if he did not fire this trooper.

A trooper who the Commissioner knew the Governor Palin and her husband believed to be an extremely poor representation of an Alaska State Trooper.

A trooper who the Commissioner knew had been repeatedly disciplined for a multitude of serious infractions. Infractions such as:

“the taking of a moose illegally, tasering an 11-year-old stepson of Wooten’s, drinking while driving in the patrol car, having a beer while he was driving his patrol car.” Monegan to Branchflower page 18

And this trooper, is the one he selects to honor on the Police Memorial Day?

I don’t believe the Commissioner was that stupid.

I don’t believe that the Commissioner was that incompetent.

I can only conclude that the Commissioner was deliberately insubordinate. That he was deliberately seeking to antagonize and worry the Governor of the State of Alaska."

This is the troopergate?

Where is the investigation on Obinladen and bombing Bill?

And the great one's funding of ACORN - should that not also be looked at?

or doesn't a Presidential candidate get vetted for the people?

Am I the only one who sees the hypocrisy?

Our tax dollars at work

Obama was the attorney representing ACORN

From an article in the New York Post

" ....Fannie and Freddie acted in response to Clinton administration pressure to boost homeownership rates among minorities and the poor. However compassionate the motive, the result of this systematic disregard for normal credit standards has been financial disaster.

ONE key pioneer of ACORN's subprime-loan shakedown racket was Madeline Talbott - an activist with extensive ties to Barack Obama. She was also in on the ground floor of the disastrous turn in Fannie Mae's mortgage policies.

Long the director of Chicago ACORN, Talbott is a specialist in "direct action" - organizers' term for their militant tactics of intimidation and disruption. Perhaps her most famous stunt was leading a group of ACORN protesters breaking into a meeting of the Chicago City Council to push for a "living wage" law, shouting in defiance as she was arrested for mob action and disorderly conduct. But her real legacy may be her drive to push banks into making risky mortgage loans.

In February 1990, Illinois regulators held what was believed to be the first-ever state hearing to consider blocking a thrift merger for lack of compliance with CRA. The challenge was filed by ACORN, led by Talbott. Officials of Bell Federal Savings and Loan Association, her target, complained that ACORN pressure was undermining its ability to meet strict financial requirements it was obligated to uphold and protested being boxed into an "affirmative-action lending policy." The following years saw Talbott featured in dozens of news stories about pressuring banks into higher-risk minority loans.

IN April 1992, Talbott filed an other precedent-setting com plaint using the "community support requirements" of the 1989 savings-and-loan bailout, this time against Avondale Federal Bank for Savings. Within a month, Chicago ACORN had organized its first "bank fair" at Malcolm X College and found 16 Chicago-area financial institutions willing to participate.

Two months later, aided by ACORN organizer Sandra Maxwell, Talbott announced plans to conduct demonstrations in the lobbies of area banks that refused to attend an ACORN-sponsored national bank "summit" in New York. She insisted that banks show a commitment to minority lending by lowering their standards on downpayments and underwriting - for example, by overlooking bad credit histories.

By September 1992, The Chicago Tribune was describing Talbott's program as "affirma- tive-action lending" and ACORN was issuing fact sheets bragging about relaxations of credit standards that it had won on behalf of minorities.

And Talbott continued her effort to, as she put it, drag banks "kicking and screaming" into high-risk loans. A September 1993 story in The Chicago Sun-Times presents her as the leader of an initiative in which five area financial institutions (including two of her former targets, now plainly cowed - Bell Federal Savings and Avondale Federal Savings) were "participating in a $55 million national pilot program with affordable-housing group ACORN to make mortgages for low- and moderate-income people with troubled credit histories."

What made this program different from others, the paper added, was the participation of Fannie Mae - which had agreed to buy up the loans. "If this pilot program works," crowed Talbott, "it will send a message to the lending community that it's OK to make these kind of loans."

Well, the pilot program "worked," and Fannie Mae's message that risky loans to minorities were "OK" was sent. The rest is financial-meltdown history.

IT would be tough to find an "on the ground" community organizer more closely tied to the subprime-mortgage fiasco than Madeline Talbott. And no one has been more supportive of Madeline Talbott than Barack Obama.

When Obama was just a budding community organizer in Chicago, Talbott was so impressed that she asked him to train her personal staff.

He returned to Chicago in the early '90s, just as Talbott was starting her pressure campaign on local banks. Chicago ACORN sought out Obama's legal services for a "motor voter" case and partnered with him on his 1992 "Project VOTE" registration drive.

In those years, he also conducted leadership-training seminars for ACORN's up-and-coming organizers. That is, Obama was training the army of ACORN organizers who participated in Madeline Talbott's drive against Chicago's banks.

More than that, Obama was funding them. As he rose to a leadership role at Chicago's Woods Fund, he became the most powerful voice on the foundation's board for supporting ACORN and other community organizers. In 1995, the Woods Fund substantially expanded its funding of community organizers - and Obama chaired the committee that urged and managed the shift.

That committee's report on strategies for funding groups like ACORN features all the key names in Obama's organizer network. The report quotes Talbott more than any other figure; Sandra Maxwell, Talbott's ACORN ally in the bank battle, was also among the organizers consulted.

MORE, the Obama-supervised Woods Fund report ac knowledges the problem of getting donors and foundations to contribute to radical groups like ACORN - whose confrontational tactics often scare off even liberal donors and foundations.

Indeed, the report brags about pulling the wool over the public's eye. The Woods Fund's claim to be "nonideological," it says, has "enabled the Trustees to make grants to organizations that use confrontational tactics against the business and government 'establishments' without undue risk of being criticized for partisanship."

Hmm. Radicalism disguised by a claim to be postideological. Sound familiar?

The Woods Fund report makes it clear Obama was fully aware of the intimidation tactics used by ACORN's Madeline Talbott in her pioneering efforts to force banks to suspend their usual credit standards. Yet he supported Talbott in every conceivable way. He trained her personal staff and other aspiring ACORN leaders, he consulted with her extensively, and he arranged a major boost in foundation funding for her efforts.

And, as the leader of another charity, the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, Obama channeled more funding Talbott's way - ostensibly for education projects but surely supportive of ACORN's overall efforts.

In return, Talbott proudly announced her support of Obama's first campaign for state Senate, saying, "We accept and respect him as a kindred spirit, a fellow organizer."

IN short, to understand the roots of the subprime-mort gage crisis, look to ACORN's Madeline Talbott. And to see how Talbott was able to work her mischief, look to Barack Obama."

."...ACORN was also a driving force behind a 1995 regulatory revision pushed through by the Clinton administration that greatly expanded the CRA and helped spawn the current financial crisis.

Obama was the attorney representing ACORN in this effort. Last November, he told the group, “I’ve been fighting alongside ACORN on issues you care about my entire career.” Indeed he has. Obama was and is fully aware of what ACORN was doing with the money and expertise he provided."