ACORN

Left-wing community organizing organization

Barack Obama did legal work for ACORN, was one of their community organizers in Chicago, and has reiterated his staunch support of them in many speeches.

ACORN, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, a community organization of low- and moderate-income families that addresses housing, schools, neighborhood safety, health care, job conditions, and other social issues that affect its members. With a membership of over 350,000, ACORN is organized into more than 850 neighborhood chapters in over 100 cities across the United States, as well as in Argentina, Canada, Mexico, and Peru. The organization was born out of the American Civil Rights Movement. ACORN was founded in 1970 by Wade Rathke, George Wiley, and Gary Delgado. Maude Hurd has been National President of ACORN since 1990.

Allegations of election fraud

On September 7, 2004, a Columbus, Ohio grand jury indicted ACORN employee and felony parolee Kevin Eugene Dooley for election fraud. The indictment charges Dooley forged a signature to a voter registration form.

During the 2004 election, an ACORN member named Mac Stuart was working for ACORN’s voter registration effort in Miami-Dade County. Stuart reported seeing ACORN workers copying voter registration forms, which is illegal under Florida law, and segregating voter registration forms for Republicans that were not subsequently turned into the County. After Stuart reported these irregularities to the election officials, ACORN fired him. Stuart filed suit against ACORN in May, 2005 for wrongful termination. ACORN counter-sued for defamation.

In August 2004 a lawsuit was filed in Albuquerque alleging that New Mexico Secretary of State Rebecca Vigil-Giron improperly exempted individuals who registered to vote through canvassers from requirements that some new registrants submit ID at polling places. In a court case, ACORN director Matt Henderson invoked his Fifth Amendment rights when asked if his group made illegal copies of voter registration cards before submitting them. The Albuquerque Tribune claims he told them this was done.

In January 2005 two ex-ACORN workers were convicted in Denver of perjury for submitting false voter registrations.

Federal indictments allege two counts each of voter registration fraud. Prosecutors said the indictments are part of a national investigation.

ACORN was investigated in 2006 for submitting false voter registrations in St. Louis, Missouri. 1,492 fraudulent voter registrations were identified, some from the dead and others for underage voters who were not aware they had been registered by ACORN.

ACORN was investigated in 2007 by King County, Washington for filing false registrations. An elections department employee called 400 phone numbers that were provided on the cards from a sample of those turned in by ACORN. Of the 400 phone numbers, only two were good, and both people denied filling out voter registration cards. On July 26, 2007, felony charges were filed against seven ACORN employees including supervisors for filing 1762 false registrations.

Note: Because of scandal and videos that showed Acorn employees in the act of supporting illegal activities, Congress cut off any further tax-dollar support and Acorn subsequently changed its name.

ACORN is one of far too many very troubling Barack Obama associations. He has been closely allied with this organization for years and even though, as a non-profit group, they are not supposed to endorse political candidates, not only have they have endorsed Barack Obama, the Obama campaign has given them $800,000 to help fund their work. What is their work? Besides neighborhood activism and other activities, they have registered over 1 million new voters, virtually all of whom will vote for Barack Obama and other liberal candidates. Non-partisan they are not, and honest they are not. Let’s look at their record.

Partial ACORN Record

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.

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.”

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.

(Originally published October 20th, 2008)

George Soros

Obama and Move on Supporter

George Soros (born August 12, 1930, in Budapest, Hungary, as György Schwartz) is a Hungarian-born American financial speculator, stock investor, philanthropist, and political activist.

Currently, he is the chairman of Soros Fund Management and the Open Society Institute and is also a former member of the Board of Directors of the Council on Foreign Relations. According to his own website, Soros claims his support for the Solidarity labour movement in Poland, as well as the Czechoslovak human rights organization Charter 77, contributed to ending Soviet Union political dominance in those countries. His funding and organization of Georgia’s Rose Revolution was considered by Russian and Western observers to have been crucial to its success, although Soros said his role has been “greatly exaggerated.” In the United States, he is known for having donated large sums of money in a failed effort to defeat President George W. Bush’s bid for re-election in 2004. On BookTV, November 12, 2007, he said that he supports Barack Obama for the Democratic candidate in the 2008 election, but says that John Edwards, Hillary Clinton, or Joe Biden are all fine candidates, as well. Soros is famously known for “breaking the Bank of England” on Black Wednesday in 1992. With an estimated current net worth of around $8.5 billion, he is ranked by Forbes as the 80th-richest person in the world.

In April 2008, Soros hosted an event in his apartment that had guests such as David Brock of the self-described progressive watchdog group Media Matters and liberal commentator Paul Begala. Brock described that the plan intends to raise $40 million to run political attack advertisements against the presumptive Republican nominee, Senator John McCain, through a group called The Fund for America and Progressive Media, whose key backer, according to politico.com, is Soros. Commentator Bill O’Reilly, who on numerous occasions has accused Soros of secretly backing what O’Reilly feels are “far-left” political causes, repeated Soros “wants to buy America” after learning about the event.

Source – Wikipedia

(Originally published October 20th, 2008)

Father Michael Pfleger

Radical Catholic Priest

Michael Louis Pfleger (born May 22, 1949) is a Roman Catholic priest and social activist in Chicago, Illinois.

Pfleger’s social activism has brought him attention throughout Chicago and beyond. He has often collaborated and associated with African American religious, political and social activists such as Jeremiah Wright, Joseph Lowery, Jesse Jackson, Cornel West, and Louis Farrakhan.

On March 28, 2008, Pfleger invited Jeremiah Wright, former pastor of presidential candidate Barack Obama, to deliver a blessing at Saint Sabina during a visit by poet Maya Angelou. Wright had been criticized by political pundits for making what they considered anti-American statements in a sermon, but Pfleger came to Wright’s defense. “I wanted him to come here so he could see that people really stand with him and support him while he’s under all this attack. America, unfortunately, has been really cheated of knowing the real Dr. Wright,” said Pfleger. In a statement on Saint Sabina’s website, Pfleger wrote, “Dr. Wright is one of the great biblical scholars of our country and the best of preachers in the prophetic tradition. Dr. Wright has been shamefully demonized by 30 second sound bites that have tried to re-define him into someone other than who he is.”

Controversy during 2008 presidential election

On May 25, 2008, Pfleger gave a sermon at Trinity United Church of Christ, then the church of Presidential candidate Barack Obama, where he mocked Hillary Clinton, Obama’s opponent for the Democratic Party nomination. Pfleger imitated Clinton by saying, “I really believe that she just always thought, ‘This is mine. I’m Bill’s wife. I’m white, and this is mine. I just gotta get up and step into the plate.’ Then out of nowhere came, ‘Hey, I’m Barack Obama,’ and she said, ‘Oh, damn! Where did you come from? I’m white. I’m entitled. There’s a black man stealing my show!'”

After hearing about Pfleger’s remarks, Obama said he was “deeply disappointed in Father Pfleger’s divisive, backward-looking rhetoric”. Pfleger later released a statement through St. Sabina that read, “I regret the words I chose Sunday. These words are inconsistent with Sen. Obama’s life and message, and I am deeply sorry if they offended Sen. Clinton or anyone else who saw them.” On May 31, 2008, Obama resigned his membership in Trinity Church, saying that his campaign had caused the church to receive excessive media attention. On June 1, 2008, Pfleger released a longer apology to the St. Sabina parish regarding the incident and its aftermath.

On June 3, 2008, Cardinal George asked Pfleger to take a temporary leave of absence from St. Sabina. George said in a statement, “I have asked Father Michael Pfleger, Pastor of St. Sabina’s Parish, to step back from his obligations there and take leave for a couple of weeks from his pastoral duties, effective today. Fr. Pfleger does not believe this to be the right step at this time. While respecting his disagreement, I have nevertheless asked him to use this opportunity to reflect on his recent statements and actions in the light of the Church’s regulations for all Catholic priests. I hope that this period will also be a time away from the public spotlight and for rest and attention to family concerns.” Pfleger resumed his parish duties on June 16, 2008.

(Originally published October 20th, 2008)

Frank Marshall Davis

Left-wing radical American journalist

Frank Marshall Davis (December 31, 1905, Arkansas City, Kansas; July 26, 1987, Honolulu, Hawaii) was an American journalist, poet and political and labor movement activist. He was investigated for his links with the Communist party in the United States. In 1950, the congressional House Un-American Activities Committee accused Davis of involvement in several communist-front organizations. The committee concluded that the Honolulu Record “is a front for the Communist Party, despite the fact that the paper does not make this admission.” The committee’s report on the Honolulu Record states the following about Davis:

Mr. Davis’ column defends Communists and attacks capitalism with the same vigor as columns appearing regularly in the Daily Worker and other frankly Communist publications. Typical of Mr. Davis’ remarks are the following: “Democracy today lies weak and slowly dying from the poison administered by the divident doctors in Washington and Wall Street who have fooled a trusting public into believing that they are the specialists who would save us from the dread diseases of socialism and communism. . . . They hope to hand us fascism disguised as the healed democracy.” (Honolulu Record, July 28, 1949, p. 8). Mr. Davis constantly defended the 11 top United States Communist officials recently convicted in New York on charges of conspiracy to advocate the overthrow of the Government by force and violence. One of Mr. Davis’ comments on the case was as follows : “I feel strong sympathy for the Communist minority who are being oppressed for their political beliefs.” (Honolulu Record, October 20, 1949, p. 6). When Mr. Davis’ column first appeared in the Record in May 1949, the Record boasted that the author was a member of the national executive board of the Civil Rights Congress. The organization is cited as Communist by Attorney General Tom Clark as well as by the Committee on Un-American Activities. Mr. Davis has signed a number of statements in behalf of Communists under the sponsorship of the Civil Rights Congress; one of these defended was Gerhart Eisler, notorious Communist international agent who escaped jailing for passport fraud by fleeing to the Soviet sector of Germany. Other front organizations of the Communist Party with which Mr. Davis has associated include : American Youth for Democracy, Abraham Lincoln School, National Federation for Constitutional Liberties, League of American Writers, the National Negro Congress, and the Hawaii Civil Liberties Committee.

Frank Marshall Davis and Barack Obama

In his autobiographical Dreams from My Father, U.S. Senator and Democratic Party presidential candidate Barack Obama wrote about “Frank”, a friend of his grandfather’s. “Frank” told Obama that they both grew up only 50 miles apart, near Wichita, although they did not meet until Hawaii, and told him about the days of Jim Crow in Kansas. As Obama remembered, “It made me smile, thinking back on Frank and his old Black Power, dashiki self. In some ways he was as incurable as my mother, as certain in his faith, living in the same sixties time warp that Hawaii had created.”

Gerald Horne, a professor, writer, Communist Party historian and contributing editor of Political Affairs, stated that “Frank” was Davis, and further claimed he was a “decisive influence” on Obama.

(Originally published October 20th, 2008)