ACORN: A very bad nut

There are a few good things regarding Barack Obama's presidential run. One is the exposure--outside of conservative circles--of Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), as an organization of ill repute. Madeline Talbot, a Chicago ACORN leader, hired Barack Obama to train her staff in the early 1990s.

In an early version of the since-failed financial bailout bill, up to $100 million of that money could have gone to an ACORN-tied organization.

IN 1992, Barack Obama led a voter registration drive for Project Vote, which also has ties to ACORN. When he served on the boards of The Woods Fund--with Bill Ayers--funds were funnelled to ACORN.

Like the Reverend Jeremiah Wright, Tony Rezko, and of course Ayers, ACORN is another association of Obama's that people to the right of Cindy Sheehan may find troubling.

What's worse, is that ACORN is one of the seeds that contributing to the housing melt-down, as The National Review's Mona Charen tells us:

ACORN does many things under the umbrella of "community organizing." They agitate for higher minimum wages, attempt to thwart school reform, try to unionize welfare workers (that is, those welfare recipients who are obliged to work in exchange for benefits) and organize voter registration efforts (always for Democrats, of course). Because they are on the side of righteousness and justice, they aren't especially fastidious about their methods. In 2006, for example, ACORN registered 1,800 new voters in Washington. The only trouble was, with the exception of six, all of the names submitted were fake. The secretary of state called it the "worst case of election fraud in our state's history." As Fox News reported: "The ACORN workers told state investigators that they went to the Seattle public library, sat at a table and filled out the voter registration forms. They made up names, addresses, and Social Security numbers and in some cases plucked names from the phone book. One worker said it was a lot of hard work making up all those names and another said he would sit at home, smoke marijuana and fill out the forms.”

ACORN explained that this was an "isolated" incident, yet similar stories have been reported in Missouri, Michigan, Ohio, and Colorado — all swing states, by the way. ACORN members have been prosecuted for voter fraud in a number of states. (See www.rottenacorn.com.) Their philosophy seems to be that everyone deserves the right to vote, whether legal or illegal, living or dead.

ACORN recognized very early the opportunity presented by the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) of 1977. As Stanley Kurtz has reported, ACORN proudly touted "affirmative action" lending and pressured banks to make subprime loans. Madeline Talbott, a Chicago ACORN leader, boasted of "dragging banks kicking and screaming" into dubious loans. And, as Sol Stern reported in City Journal, ACORN also found a remunerative niche as an "advisor" to banks seeking regulatory approval. "Thus we have J.P. Morgan & Co., the legatee of the man who once symbolized for many all that was supposedly evil about American capitalism, suddenly donating hundreds of thousands of dollars to ACORN." Is this a great country or what? As conservative community activist Robert Woodson put it, "The same corporations that pay ransom to Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton pay ransom to ACORN."

Since the New York Times is busy writing about Sarah Palin, once again it's up to The National Review, this time Kenneth Blackwell, to put ACORN in its proper place:

ACORN is a discredited organization, and far too many of its leaders and workers have been prosecuted for felonies against democracy. The idea that a single dime of taxpayer money would ever go to such a group is an outrage.

And Mr. Obama needs to explain his involvement with them.

Hmm....a question for Obama at the next presidential debate?

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Vote fraud news: Obama, ACORN, and East St. Louis

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