Obama and Acorn: Community organizers, phony voters, and your tax dollars.

From the Wall Street Journal.
October 14, 2008

At the recent Emmy Awards, historian Laura Linney averred that America's Founders had been "community organizers" -- like Barack Obama. Too bad they aren't like that any more. Mr. Obama's kind of organizers work at Acorn, the militant advocacy group that is turning up in reports about voter fraud across the country.

Acorn -- the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now -- has been around since 1970 and boasts 350,000 members. We've written about them for years, but Acorn is now getting more attention as John McCain's campaign makes an issue of the fraud reports and Acorn's ties to Mr. Obama. It's about time someone exposed this shady outfit that uses government dollars to lobby for larger government.

Acorn uses various affiliated groups to agitate for "a living wage," for "affordable housing," for "tax justice" and union and environmental goals, as well as against school choice and welfare reform. It was a major contributor to the subprime meltdown by pushing lenders to make home loans on easy terms, conducting "strikes" against banks so they'd lower credit standards.

But the organization's real genius is getting American taxpayers to foot the bill. According to a 2006 report from the Employment Policies Institute (EPI), Acorn has been on the federal take since 1977. For instance, Acorn's American Institute for Social Justice claimed $240,000 in tax money between fiscal years 2002 and 2003. Its American Environmental Justice Project received 100% of its revenue from government grants in the same years. EPI estimates the Acorn Housing Corporation alone received some $16 million in federal dollars from 1997-2007. Only recently, Democrats tried and failed to stuff an "affordable housing" provision into the $700 billion bank rescue package that would have let politicians give even more to Acorn.

All this money gives Acorn the ability to pursue its other great hobby: electing liberals. Acorn is spending $16 million this year to register new Democrats and is already boasting it has put 1.3 million new voters on the rolls. The big question is how many of these registrations are real.

The Michigan Secretary of State told the press in September that Acorn had submitted "a sizeable number of duplicate and fraudulent applications." Earlier this month, Nevada's Democratic Secretary of State Ross Miller requested a raid on Acorn's offices, following complaints of false names and fictional addresses (including the starting lineup of the Dallas Cowboys). Nevada's Clark County Registrar of Voters Larry Lomax said he saw rampant fraud in 2,000 to 3,000 applications Acorn submitted weekly.

Officials in Ohio are investigating voter fraud connected with Acorn, and Florida's Seminole County is withholding Acorn registrations that appear fraudulent. New Mexico, North Carolina and Missouri are looking into hundreds of dubious Acorn registrations. Wisconsin is investigating Acorn employees for, according to an election official, "making people up or registering people that were still in prison."

Then there's Lake County, Indiana, which has already found more than 2,100 bogus applications among the 5,000 Acorn dumped right before the deadline. "All the signatures looked exactly the same," said Ruthann Hoagland, of the county election board. Bridgeport, Connecticut estimates about 20% of Acorn's registrations were faulty. As of July, the city of Houston had rejected or put on hold about 40% of the 27,000 registration cards submitted by Acorn.

That's just this year. In 2004, four Acorn employees were indicted in Ohio for submitting false voter registrations. In 2005, two Colorado Acorn workers were found to have submitted false registrations. Four Acorn Missouri employees were indicted in 2006; five were found guilty in Washington state in 2007 for filling out registration forms with names from a phone book.

Which brings us to Mr. Obama, who got his start as a Chicago "community organizer" at Acorn's side. In 1992 he led voter registration efforts as the director of Project Vote, which included Acorn. This past November, he lauded Acorn's leaders for being "smack dab in the middle" of that effort. Mr. Obama also served as a lawyer for Acorn in 1995, in a case against Illinois to increase access to the polls.

During his tenure on the board of Chicago's Woods Fund, that body funneled more than $200,000 to Acorn. More recently, the Obama campaign paid $832,000 to an Acorn affiliate. The campaign initially told the Federal Election Commission this money was for "staging, sound, lighting." It later admitted the cash was to get out the vote.
 
The Obama campaign is now distancing itself from Acorn, claiming Mr. Obama never organized with it and has nothing to do with illegal voter registration. Yet it's disingenuous to channel cash into an operation with a history of fraud and then claim you're shocked to discover reports of fraud. As with Rev. Jeremiah Wright and William Ayers, Mr. Obama was happy to associate with Acorn when it suited his purposes. But now that he's on the brink of the Presidency, he wants to disavow his ties.

The Justice Department needs to treat these fraud reports as something larger than a few local violators. The question is whether Acorn is systematically subverting U.S. election law -- on the taxpayer's dime.

The Anti-American Fraud

ELECTION 2008

American flag disappears from Obama campaign jet
Candidate's trademark 'O' replaces stars and stripes

Posted: July 21, 2008
6:31 pm Eastern

By Aaron Klein
© 2008 WorldNetDaily

As part of a month-long aircraft makeover, a painted American flag was removed from the tail of Sen. Barack Obama's official campaign airplane and was replaced with the presidential candidate's trademark "O" symbol.

The refurbished 757 was unveiled to members of the news media today, 41 of whom boarded the craft and took off to meet Obama in Amman, Jordan, where the presidential candidate will stop as part of a Middle Eastern and European tour.

Obama traveled to the Mideast earlier this week on board a separate airplane.

Fox News blogger Bonny Kapp, traveling on Obama's new airplane, reported:

"The North American jet that flew Obama and his traveling crew around for much of the primary season was refurbished with new seats and power for each passenger a must on the campaign trail. And the plane that once had an American flag on its tail now sports the Obama 'O.'"

Obama's 'O' symbol is red, white and blue.

Most official U.S. government aircraft, including Air Force One, have U.S. flags on their tails.

Both Fox News and the Chicago Sun-Times posted pictures of the Obama campaign's redressed airplane, which does not have an American flag or any other U.S. national symbols on the section that sports the airplane door from which Obama and his team will enter and exit.

The airplane boasts Obama's anthem, "Change We Can Believe In" and the candidate’s website address.

The aircraft also has required identification numbers and a U.S. flag to identify the nationality of the aircraft.

According to Chicago Sun-Times reporter Lynn Sweet, the refurbished Obama aircraft features a "first class" section for the candidate and his closest advisors; several "business class" seats, and a large coach section, usually meant for the traveling press corps.

Sweet reported fruit and cheese platters greeted reporters on board the flight. Dinner options offered were beef medallions, baked tilapia or eggplant parmesan.

She wrote the Obama campaign provided overnight kits for the flight that include toothbrush, mouthwash, socks, Neutrogena body lotion and lip moisturizer, Scope mouthwash, ear plugs and a blindfold for sleeping.

The F Word

by NJ_GOP

(NJ is an expert in this field and this is a copy/notes from a speech she recently gave on the subprime mortgage crisis. - CP)

The subprime mortgage crisis has been the topic of headlines for many months now. Politicians and critics often cite “predatory Lending” as the culprit, but there are more factors to consider and a gigantic one not popularly discussed is the “F” word…. Fraud.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has reported that mortgage fraud cost the mortgage lending industry between $946 million and $4.2 billion in 2006 alone.

The Mortgage Bankers Association of America’s position on Fraud is: Current federal laws provide sufficient authority to prosecute mortgage fraud and that it would be a mistake to conflate mortgage fraud and predatory lending. From mbaa.org: “Rather than drafting new legislation, the focus should be on providing the structure and resources needed by law enforcement officials to combat mortgage fraud. While law enforcement has all the legal tools it needs at its disposal, it requires more resources and a more efficient framework to use those tools effectively.”

http://search.mbatechservices.com/search?q=cache:m7lhAX8xyiAJ:http://www.mortgagebankers.org/files/Conferences/2007/2007LIMT/2007LIMTProtectingHandoutStrengthening.pdf

A Senate bill recently introduced by none other than Barak Obama does nothing to combat mortgage fraud, instead it hampers the lender’s ability to foreclose and focuses mainly on what the bill terms “deceptive practices” by lenders.

To illustrate one type of fraud that is plaguing the industry I’d like to share 2 stories:

Once upon a time there was a factory worker living in an apartment in New Jersey. The factory worker worked Saturdays and overtime and after several years plus a gift from Grandma for mowing her lawn he was able to save up 20% of the sales price of a new home for a down payment. The lender collected a big pile of documents from the factory worker to ensure he was able to pay back the 30 year loan they were making to him. When it was all done, he moved into his new house and ate off of TV trays for 2 years until he could afford furniture. He lived happily ever after on his 1/4 acre of American Dream.

Story #2: Once upon a time there was a factory worker living in apartment in NJ. The factory worker found out that his co-worker owned his very own house! Factory worker #2 wanted a house too. So Factory worker #2 went to a realtor who found him a nice home. Factory worker #2 had no savings. The realtor said that’s ok, we’ll find financing at 100% and we’ll raise the loan amount and sales price to cover all your costs. Uh oh – 100% means a higher loan amount and a higher payment, That’s OK says the loan officer, we’ll do it as “stated” income. Factory worker #2 is a smart guy, he says what he needs to say to get the loan and happily signs documents attesting to his “stated” income thinking everybody does it. No big deal --- oh and we need to “up” the sales price to cover your closing costs so we’ll get the appraiser to say the house is really worth the sales price. It’s ok everybody does it.

So Factory worker #2 moves into his new house just like factory worker #1, only guy #2 has $0 invested in his American Dream.

6 months later the Factory shuts down and both workers lose their jobs. Which loan goes into default?

Studies have shown that people with no investment (either monetary or in sweat equity) in their home are far more prone to walk away when they run into financial difficulties. Lenders knew this of course and in the past they would take the attitude that the risk was worth it because you could always fall back on your property value to recover in the event of default. However, Fraud connected to inflated values will have to be another topic for another day.

But the headlines are telling us that the lenders are all in big trouble. The lending industry took a huge gamble with high risk borrowers who were more llikely to default and they lost. Some blame the housing bubble and that may be a factor, others blame greedy lenders, but my opinion is that the industry did not pay enough attention to the huge gaping opportunity for Fraud. Nor did they estimate the high volume of fraudulent loans that would ultimately haunt them into ruin.

Now there are many other factors that contributed to the current crisis, including the “bubble”, the baby boomers wanting to downsize out of their McMansions, the big investors’ sudden unwillingness to finance the “stated loans” leaving small lenders holding big loans that ruined many of them literally overnight.

But Fraud --- much of it involving the so-called white lie such as the income and sales price fraud in the fairy tale, is a nightmare for the industry. Some Fraud took form in much more deliberate schemes than the “white lie” fraud, some involving just a few parties and others involving much larger rings. I worked on one where no less than 65 people all used the same apartment address in California who purchased 2 and 3 home each from various lenders. The borrowers never make even the 1^st payment and never had any intention of moving into the house, and some were probably not even real people. These scams made a lot of people rich have hurt the mortgage industry.

There are many out there who want to provide a one-word answer to a complicated problem by blaming the “predatory lenders”…. Why everyone is ignoring the “predatory borrower” is beyond me….I guess it’s more acceptable to blame the big mean corporation and assume that the people who lied about their income and later cry that they were “hoodwinked” are just innocent victims.

Should the government provide a bailout? For government to bail out those who got in over their heads, or for the government to punish the investors by telling them they can’t foreclose or that the ARM loans are not allowed to adjust – is completely ludicrous. If you bought a 10% CD and the government came along and said you are only allowed to get 5% for it because the bank messed up you’d scream.

No, lenders who invested in bad loans whether it is hedge funds or someone’s pension, or whatever, I say you took the risk, you take the loss get over it. If big companies took big losses I don’t see how it is the taxpayers’ responsibility to remedy their woes. What I would like to see are convictions for those who committed Fraud since like the insurance business, it will end up costing all of us money. There are so many victims and analysts have so many reasons for the collapse but without the fraud factor this crisis would not be nearly as bad.

Yes people are losing their homes, this is sensationalized all over the media. Were some of them “hoodwinked” maybe – and those cases should be prosecuted; but if someone bought more house than he or she could afford, AND he or she “hoodwinked” the lender,

The foreclosure should proceed to fulfill the contract and be fair to the investor.

It might sound harsh but seriously, is Factory worker #2 really any worse off if you foreclose on him and he goes back to living in apartment? I know someone who had 2 kids who was foreclosed upon 4 years ago. They had exaggerated their income when they purchased the home. After foreclosure, they rented for a time, and even lived with the dreaded in-laws. Just a few months ago, after attending financial counseling, they were able to buy another very nice home that is within their means. So the foreclosure was difficult but they survived it and ended up better off.

The MBAA states that what is needed is:

• A centrally coordinated federal mortgage fraud office at the justice dept

• With adequate funding

• And coordination with state prosecutors and law enforcement personell

• MBAA has initiated steps to form a national database that will help lenders protect themselves from fraud.

The politicians are too afraid to speak the “F” word in public for fear of losing votes, but who else has the power to finance and support real solutions and not just a feel-good measure with no teeth?