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By Vladimir Posted in 2008 | ACORN | Barack Obama | Obamafiles | Vote Fraud — Comments (10) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »

The defeat that stings the worst is when you feel like you've been beaten at your own game. The narrow defeats of the Presidential elections of 2000 and 2004 have energized the lunatic base of the Democratic Party. Images of Diebold-rigged voting machines, minority voter intimidation and The Political Anachronism That Is the Electoral College have haunted the activists' dreams for eight years. We can expect the Dems to pull out all the stops to make sure it doesn't happen in 2008.

One need not look to the Book of Revelation to find reason to be troubled by the presumptive Democratic nominee. The "Unholy Trinity" -- Barack Obama, Chicago politics and the radical "community development" organization that goes by the acronym ACORN -- should be troubling enough.

Read on....

ACORN receives 40% of its funding from public sources. Its use of the public funds is supposed to be "non-partisan", but there appears to be no bright line between ACORN's affiliates that spend this money and the politically active parent organization. Another significant source of funds is the shakedown of financial institutions and other corporations in return for ACORN's cooperation (or lack of objection) to corporate projects. And according to one report, linked below, ACORN is using its "community housing" grants to assist, ahem, undocumented workers and Americans with undocumented (i.e., under-the-table) income to obtain sub-prime "exotic" mortgages.

Stanley Kurtz, National Review Online, Inside Obama’s Acorn

What if Barack Obama’s most important radical connection has been hiding in plain sight all along? Obama has had an intimate and long-term association with the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (Acorn), the largest radical group in America. If I told you Obama had close ties with MoveOn.org or Code Pink, you’d know what I was talking about. Acorn is at least as radical as these better-known groups, arguably more so. Yet because Acorn works locally, in carefully selected urban areas, its national profile is lower. Acorn likes it that way. And so, I’d wager, does Barack Obama.

A report from Capital Research Center Foundation Watch, Barack Obama: A Radical Leftist’s Journey from Community Organizing to Politics

The remarkable ascent of Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama begins with his career as a “community organizer” for far-left causes in Chicago, an experience that served as a launching pad for his political career. Along with way, Obama acquired some unsavory friends including sleazy political fundraiser Tony Rezko and unrepentant Pentagon bomber William Ayers. Obama promises to carry his activist spirit into national politics, but does he also carry the smell of Chicago politics into the national arena?

Michelle Malkin, The ACORN Obama Knows

Last July, ACORN settled the largest case of voter fraud in the history of Washington State. Seven ACORN workers had submitted nearly 2,000 bogus voter registration forms. According to case records, they flipped through phone books for names to use on the forms, including "Leon Spinks," "Frekkie Magoal" and "Fruto Boy Crispila." Three ACORN election hoaxers pleaded guilty in October. A King County prosecutor called ACORN's criminal sabotage "an act of vandalism upon the voter rolls."

The group's vandalism on electoral integrity is systemic. ACORN has been implicated in similar voter fraud schemes in Missouri, Ohio and at least 12 other states.[See more on vote fraud below. -- ed.] The Wall Street Journal noted: "In Ohio in 2004, a worker for one affiliate was given crack cocaine in exchange for fraudulent registrations that included underage voters, dead voters and pillars of the community named Mary Poppins, Dick Tracy and Jive Turkey. During a congressional hearing in Ohio in the aftermath of the 2004 election, officials from several counties in the state explained ACORN's practice of dumping thousands of registration forms in their lap on the submission deadline, even though the forms had been collected months earlier."
...

Under the guise of "consumer advocacy," ACORN has received money from the Department of Housing and Urban Development. HUD funds hundreds, if not thousands, of left-wing "anti-poverty" groups across the country led by ACORN. Last October, HUD announced more than $44 million in new housing counseling grants to over 400 state and local efforts. The White House has increased funding for housing counseling by 150 percent since taking office in 2001, despite the role most of these recipients play as activist satellites of the Democratic Party. The AARP scored nearly $400,000 for training; the National Council of La Raza ("The Race") scooped up more than $1.3 million; the National Urban League raked in nearly $1 million; and the ACORN Housing Corporation received more than $1.6 million.

From the New York Times, Democrats’ Vote Drive in Louisiana Stirs Concern

Nationally, 39 percent of eligible blacks and 46 percent of eligible Latinos are not registered to vote, compared with 29 percent of eligible whites, according to a 2006 study by Project Vote, a nonpartisan group [and ACORN affiliate] that promotes voting in low-income and minority communities.

Project Vote and Acorn, a left-wing national organizing group, have teamed up to conduct large voter drives across the country, with the goal of registering 1.2 million people by Labor Day. They have already submitted 600,000 applications, said Michael Slater, the deputy director of Project Vote. Acorn is among several groups registering voters in Louisiana.

...

Democratic officials said the Louisiana drive, which was called Voting is Power, had produced 74,000 applications by the time it concluded last week. Registrars in the four main parishes where the drive operated report numbers closer to 50,000, but there is no breakdown of how many were submitted to other parishes.

Registrars have reported that as many as a third of the applications cannot be entered into the system, and many of the rest require more information. The state Republican Party called the operation “the Dems’ phony registration drive.”

Democrats say the burden is on the registrars to double-check and verify application information.

“Instead of throwing up complaints, they should be working to get as many people as possible registered,” said Matthew Miller, a spokesman for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee in Washington, which paid for the drive because Senator Mary Landrieu, a Democrat, is up for re-election and her voter base in New Orleans was eroded by Hurricane Katrina.

From a report by the Consumers' Right League, entitled ACORN's Hypocritical House of Cards: How One "Community" Group Helped the Housing Crisis Harm Taxpayers:

ACORN’s long history of abusing the public’s trust seems to have continued through the housing bubble. Its advocacy for loose credit played a role in the current subprime mess. Its advocacy of exotic loans calls into question the wisdom of giving taxpayer money to the organization. And its record of inappropriate ties between a non-profit that receives government funding and a political organization may violate federal laws. Congressional leaders should be wary of donating hard-earned tax dollars to a group with this sordid record. At a minimum, a Congressional investigation is warranted.

[emphasis added throughout]