Chicago Daily Observer

The Financial Times tells us that the McCain campaign is investigating links between the Obama campaign and ACORN‘s fraud riddled voter registration drives. This is necessary, I gather, because the Financial Times is not investigating the obvious links between the Obama campaign and ACORN, such as providing $800,000 in support for ACORN‘s foot soldiers.

But the FT absolves ACORN of being much more than a general pro-Democracy movement telling us that:

“Acorn is a non-partisan group whose activities among poor and minority groups include registration drives”.

Never mind ACORN‘s incessant lobbying for housing swindles and the long standing ties with the Democratic Party and Sen. Obama, the FT sees this as only a campaign issue, not worthy of their investigative power.

The Associated Press has taken to quoting hecklers at McCain rallies;

McCain’s remarks about Obama were interrupted with shouts of “socialist,” “terrorist” and “liar.” At another time, a man in the bleaches [sic] shouted “No more ACORN,” referring to a group that registers poor voters.

Poor poor voters! This guy must really have it in for them!

Actually, as it turns out, poor voters aren’t the only ones Acorn—an acronym for Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now—registers. The group has been in the news in several key states the past few days:

• Nevada. “State authorities on Tuesday raided an organization that registers low-income people to vote”that would be Acorn“alleging that its canvassers falsified forms with bogus names, fake addresses or famous personalities,” the Las Vegas Review-Journal reports. “The secretary of state’s office launched an investigation after noticing that names did not match addresses and that most members ... Read More...

Five weeks ago, one of our regulars here at SAB took note of a Michelle Malkin piece on ACORN’s nefarious “voter registration” activities, here. Included was the fact that the Obama campaign had been forced to correct its filings with the FEC regarding payments made from “advance work” to “get-out-the-vote” work instead. ACORN, which claims to be non-partisan and a non-profit, was paid over $800,000 by the Obama campaign, through its front group, Citizens Services, Inc. for that so-called “advance work.” Obviously, the documentation supporting that “advance work” claim by Obama was fraudulent.

According to its website,

ACORN is a non-profit, non-partisan social justice organization with national headquarters in New York, New Orleans and Washington, D.C. To maintain independence, ACORN does not accept government funding and is not tax exempt.

A specific, month by month account of money paid by the Obama ... Read More...

Despite efforts to blame the rescue bill’s failure on the GOP, it should be remembered that 95 Democrats — some 40% of the Democratic Caucus — withheld support. Obama himself also deserves blame — not only for the bill’s failure, but also for the crisis it was designed to solve.

As the New York Times reports, “Aides to Mr. Obama said he had not directly reached out to try to sway any House Democrats who opposed the measure.” Is the reason the fact that the slush fund for ACORN in the original bill, siphoning off 20% of any future profits for such activist groups, was trimmed from the tree?

Obama, who once represented ACORN in a lawsuit against the state of Illinois, was hired by the group to train its community organizers and staff in the methods and tactics of the late Saul Alinsky. ACORN would ... Read More...

For ACORN, it’s all about the sawdust.

The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) has come under fire for a plethora of scandals lately. The most prominent of these scandals surround s the issue of rampant voter fraud, a practice that ought to be particularly troubling considering the virulent, pro-Obama partisan nature of the group.

Most recently, ACORN has been implicated in voter fraud schemes in over a dozen states, having submitted thousands of fraudulent voter registration cards in places like Missouri, Washington and Ohio. The organization apparently had no qualms about registering dead people, re-registering already registered voters, or fabricating drivers’ license numbers.

The latest attack on ACORN, however, comes not from Republicans, Talk Radio or ... Read More...

WHAT exactly does a “community organizer” do? Barack Obama’s rise has left many Americans asking themselves that question. Here’s a big part of the answer: Community organizers intimidate banks into making high-risk loans to customers with poor credit.

In the name of fairness to minorities, community organizers occupy private offices, chant inside bank lobbies, and confront executives at their homes – and thereby force financial institutions to direct hundreds of millions of dollars in mortgages to low-credit customers.

In other words, community organizers help to undermine the US economy by pushing the banking system into a sinkhole of bad loans. And Obama has spent years training and funding the organizers who do it.

When the embezzlement of almost $1 million by the brother of the founder of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, better known as Acorn, surfaced last month, the organization announced that an anonymous supporter had agreed to make it whole.

That supporter was Drummond Pike, the founder and chief executive of the Tides Foundation, which channels money to what it describes as progressive nonprofits, including some Acorn charitable affiliates.

Mr. Pike is a friend of Wade Rathke, the founder of Acorn and its leader until the scandal broke, and he agreed to buy the promissory note that required the Rathke family to repay Acorn the money that Mr. Rathke’s brother, Dale, had stolen.

Barack Obama’s ACORN is part of the problem. Involved in voter registration fraud, embezzlement, ACORN also bears some responsibility for the housing crash. Townhall:

ACORN’s “victories” often have harmed rather than helped their intended beneficiaries. ACORN-sponsored community groups, for instance, regularly have invoked the Community Reinvestment Act of 1977 in their attempts to block bank acquisitions and mergers with flimsy charges of mortgage lending “discrimination.”