ACORN – Another example of Obama’s “judgment” and associations

By now everyone is aware of the “subprime meltdown”… the legacy of easy money for those with less than perfect credit, and the massive defaults of these A-minus loans – predominately by those on the ARM loans.

Tho these loans make up a small percentage of all the loans in the mortgage market, the effects of these defaults of have had wide spread effects on not only talks about bail out of the secondary mortgage note holder, but in the industry tightening it’s grip on future monies. This has left developers and investors in a rock and a hard place, unable to obtain the needed cash for development and keep the cash flowing in the real estate industry.

This drop in construction and development has domino’ed to the retail sector, resulting in lower sale numbers for building supplies, job losses for those in the construction fields.

Part of the “easy money” problem was driven by lobbyists, actively soliciting Congress to open the market to minorities who they believed were being discriminated against. One such notable lobbyist was ACORN (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now). From the ACORN Oct 16th, 2003 news release:

1. ACORN STUDY FINDS INCREASED RACIAL DISPARITY IN NATION’S MORTGAGE LENDING — On October 16, ACORN released the study “The Great Divide 2003,” documenting racial and economic disparities in the mortgage lending market. Analyzing data on a national scale and in 115 metropolitan areas, the study finds that nationally in 2002 African American homebuyers were more than twice (2.38 times) as likely to be denied a conventional purchase loan as white borrowers,
and Latinos were rejected one and a half (1.63 times) more often. Racial disparities continue to be sizable even after controlling for income. The study includes ACORN’s recommendations for steps to address the problem including higher CRA standards on the part of Federal Regulators, increased efforts by lenders, more action to address predatory lending, and additional funding for housing counseling and fair housing programs. The recommendations also address a number of issues in the Fair Credit Reporting Act legislation currently being considered by Congress. For more information, link to http://acorn.org/?1781 or contact Valerie Coffin at natacornres at acorn.org or 410-735-3373.

What affirmative action leftist groups like ACORN fail to recognize is that lending is a business. The higher the risk of the borrower’s default, the higher the rate they charge to carry the note. It’s just good business.

Needless to say, ACORN doesn’t admit it’s responsibility in contributing to the “easy money” that has led to the problems with lending and real estate today. Nor has ACORN been able to duck public scrutiny after their case settlement in July 2007 for voter fraud. From Michelle Malkin’s article June of this year:

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. 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.”

In March, Philadelphia elections officials accused the nonprofit advocacy group of filing fraudulent voter registrations in advance of the April 22nd Pennsylvania primary. The charges have been forwarded to the city district attorney’s office.

~~~

ACORN has been implicated in similar schemes in 14 other states – including Ohio, where a worker traded crack cocaine for fraudulent registrations.

Back in the ’80s and ’90s, ACORN’s tactics included trespassing, illegal seizure of private property, physical harassment, intimidation and outright extortion.

For example, in 1985, ACORN illegally seized 25 abandoned buildings owned by New York City and installed squatters as residents. A weak-kneed City Hall eventually gave the group title to the buildings – proving that crime can pay.

As the Consumers Rights League found in their report, they have a history of advocating more for themselves than for the needy consumers they purport to protect:

• 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:

• 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

Today, ACORN is faced with a new corruption scandal they will be unable to hide… any further, that is. They’ve been caught with their hands in the proverbial cookie jar, filled with funds that are supplied by American taxpayers via government subsidies.

The New York Times reports that Dale Rathke – whose brother started the group back in 1970 as a vehicle to help low-income people “take back what’s rightfully theirs” – embezzled nearly $1 million from ACORN back in 1999 and 2000.

How did ACORN handle the crime? By disguising it on the books as a loan from one of its contractors and letting Rathke’s family make restitution at the rate of $30,000 a year. (An anonymous donor reportedly has agreed to pick up the remaining $800,000 tab.)

Incredibly, ACORN kept Rathke on the payroll as a $38,000-a-year employee until as recently as last month – and only let him go when word of his fraud leaked to donors.

And, the Times reports, most of the people who covered up the embezzlement are still working for ACORN.

Instead of being repentive, ACORN spokespeople are defiant, busy crying “foul”. They plead good intent, and whine that this latest scandal will substantiate their critics’ claims.

But is ACORN’s leadership apologetic? Not in the slightest. “We did what we thought was right,” said the group’s president, Maude Hurd.

ACORN’s founder – whose brother perpetrated the fraud – also defended the cover-up, saying publicity would have given the group’s critics a “weapon.”

Now that’s it’s been established that ACORN is another leech, sucking up taxpayer funds “for the people”, where does Obama fit in? They have a long history together.

Prior to law school, Barack Obama worked as an organizer for their affiliates in New York and Chicago. He always has been an ACORN person — meeting and working with them to advance their causes. Through his membership on the board of the Woods Fund for Chicago and his friendship with Teresa Heinz Kerry, Obama has helped ensure that they remain funded well.

Since he graduated from law school, Obama’s work with ACORN and the Midwest Academy has ranged from training and fundraising, to legal representation and promoting their work.

Obama’s intimate relationship with ACORN has not been without publicity. Stanley Kurz from NRO probably has the most extensive story from May of this year behind just who ACORN is, their mafioso like tactics to further their designs for urban American, and Obama’s key role in their activities.

At least a few news reports have briefly mentioned Obama’s role in training Acorn’s leaders, but none that I know of have said what Foulkes reports next: that Obama’s long service with Acorn led many members to serve as the volunteer shock troops of Obama’s early political campaigns — his initial 1996 State Senate campaign, and his failed bid for Congress in 2000 (Foulkes confuses the dates of these two campaigns.) With Obama having personally helped train a new cadre of Chicago Acorn leaders, by the time of Obama’s 2004 U.S. Senate campaign, Obama and Acorn were “old friends,” says Foulkes.

~~~

Although it’s been noted in an important story by John Fund, and in a long Obama background piece in the New York Times, more attention needs to be paid to possible links between Obama and Acorn during the period of Obama’s service on the boards of two charitable foundations, the Woods Fund and the Joyce Foundation.

According to the New York Times, Obama’s memberships on those foundation boards, “allowed him to help direct tens of millions of dollars in grants” to various liberal organizations, including Chicago Acorn, “whose endorsement Obama sought and won in his State Senate race.” As best as I can tell (and this needs to be checked out more fully), Acorn maintains both political and “non-partisan” arms. Obama not only sought and received the endorsement of Acorn’s political arm in his local campaigns, he recently accepted Acorn’s endorsement for the presidency, in pursuit of which he reminded Acorn officials of his long-standing ties to the group.

In addition to Obama’s fund raising and training efforts on behalf of ACORN, it also happens to be one of the very few appearances that Obama, the lawyer, put in an actual court appearance. In the mid 90s, Obama sued then GOP IL Governor, Jim Edgar in the “motor voter” case, representing ACORN.

It was not the only time that attorney Obama stepped up to the plate for minorities in the mortgage industry. Unrelated to ACORN itself, but again with the affirmative action theme, BHO “represented Calvin Roberson in a 1994 lawsuit against Citibank, charging the bank systematically denied mortgages to African-American applicants and others from minority neighborhoods.

While it can be said that Obama’s ties to ACORN – as well as his campaign support from the banking/investment industry – have been touched on in the media, it apparently has failed to generate any of the outrage it deserves. Perhaps with ACORN’s latest fraud and cover up problems, more needed scrutiny will be applied to the wannabe POTUS over his poor judgment and nefarious associations.

Or not….