ACORN–Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now–Obama’s Red Shirts

Posted on September 27, 2008. Filed under: Blogroll, Books, Economics, Immigration, Investments, Life, Links, Music, People, Politics, Quotations, Rants, Raves, Regulations, Resources, Taxes, Video | Tags: ACORN, Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, Barack Obama, brown shirts, Eric Hoffer, Obama, Obama's Red Shirts, red shirts, SA, Sturmabteilung, Voter Fraud |

“All mass movements generate in their adherents a readness to die and a proclivity for united action; all of them, irrespective of the doctrine they preach and the program they project, breed fanaticism, enthusiasm, fervent hope, hatred and intolerance; all of them are capable of releasing a powerful flow of activity in certain departments of life; all of them demand blind faith and singlehearted allegiance.”

~Eric Hoffer, The True Believer, 1951

Any socialist politician that is attempting to start a mass movement must have their front-line shock troops of true believers.

Adolf Hitler had the Sturmabteilung, also known as the SA or his brown shirts.

Adolf Hitler – The Savior of Germany

Barack Obama has ACORN, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, his red shirts.

ACORN National Convention 2008, Detroit

ACORN Grassroots Democracy Campaign

ACORN has a checkered reputation of being involved with both voter fraud in many states and recent attempts by the Democratic Party to take some of the projected profits from the bailout to fund their organization.

Obama complicit in voter fraud? — Obama’s ACORN connection

Shocking!—Democrats Trying to Give Bailout Money to Obama’s Owner ACORN

In the past Barack Obama was ACORN’s attorney.

Recently the Obama campaign has provided campaign contributions to ACORN to get out the vote–for Obama.

Obama and Acorn

2007-12-01 Obama Acorn Speech

EVIDENCE FOUND!!! Clinton administration’s “BANK AFFIRMATIVE ACTION” They forced banks to make BAD LOANS and ACORN and Obama’s tie to all of it!!!

Acorn / Voter Fraud / Obama and Community Organizers

Barack Obama agenda is to make America a socialist nation by massively redistributing income through taxation.

Barack Obama’s Hidden Agenda, More Taxes, Socialism….

Only you can prevent socialism in America.

Background Articles and Videos

Sturmabteilung

“The Sturmabteilung (help·info), abbreviated SA, (German for “Assault detachment” or “Assault section”, usually translated as “stormtroop(er)s”), functioned as a paramilitary organization of the NSDAP – the German Nazi party. It played a key role in Adolf Hitler’s rise to power in the 1930s.

SA men were often called “brownshirts“, for the colour of their uniforms, and to distinguish them from the Schutzstaffel (SS), who wore black and brown uniforms (compare the Italian blackshirts). Brown-coloured shirts were chosen as the SA uniform because a large batch of them was cheaply available after World War I, having originally been ordered for German troops serving in Africa.

The SA was also the first Nazi paramilitary group to develop pseudo-military titles for bestowal upon its members. The SA ranks would be adopted by several other Nazi Party groups, chief among them the SS. They were very important to Hitler’s rise to power until they were superseded by the SS after the Night of the Long Knives. …”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sturmabteilung

Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now

“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.^[1] Maude Hurd has been National President of ACORN since 1990.

ACORN groups work through direct action, negotiations, and with public officials.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Association_of_Community_Organizations_for_Reform_Now

ACORN

ACORN, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, is the nation’s largest community organization of low- and moderate-income families, working together for social justice and stronger communities.

http://www.acorn.org/

ACORN: Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now

“…The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) is a grassroots political organization that grew out of George Wiley’s National Welfare Rights Organization (NWRO), whose members in the late 1960s and early 70s invaded welfare offices across the U.S. — often violently — bullying social workers and loudly demanding every penny to which the law “entitled” them. In the late 1960s, ACORN co-founder Wade Rathke was a NWRO organizer and a protegé of Wiley. Rathke also organized draft resistance for the militant group Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) during the same period.

In 1970 Rathke — along with the aforementioned Wiley (best known for his effective use of the so-called “Cloward-Piven strategy,” which called for swamping the welfare rolls with new applicants and thereby creating an economic crisis) and Gary Delgado (a lead organizer for Wiley’s NWRO) — formed a new entity called Arkansas Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN). The group’s name was later changed to Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, but the acronym ACORN remained. Instead of focusing only on welfare recipients, ACORN’s mandate included all issues touching low-income and working-class people.

Rathke and his ACORN co-founders enlisted civil rights workers and trained them in a program (at Syracuse University) patterned after Saul Alinsky’s activist tactics.

Today ACORN claims 175,000 dues-paying member families, and more than 850 chapters in 70 U.S. cities in 38 states. (The organization is also active in Canada and Mexico). It owns two radio stations, a housing corporation, and a law office, and maintains affiliate relationships with a host of trade-union locals. ACORN also runs schools where children are trained in class consciousness; a network of “boot camps” for training street activists; and operations that extort contributions from banks and other businesses under threat of racial violence and trumped-up civil rights charges. …”

“…On June 2, 2008, Wade Rathke stepped down from his role as ACORN’s chief organizer.

“…Also in 2008, ACORN publicly acknowledged that Dale Rathke — the brother of Wade Rathke — had embezzled nearly $1 million from ACORN and affiliated groups in 1999 and 2000. ACORN further admitted that for eight years its executives had kept this information secret from almost all of their organization’s board members and from law-enforcement authorities. Wrote journalist Stephanie Strom in July 2008:

“Dale Rathke remained on Acorn’s payroll until a month ago, when disclosure of his theft by foundations and other donors forced the organization to dismiss him. ‘We thought it best at the time to protect the organization, as well as to get the funds back into the organization, to deal with it in-house,’ said Maude Hurd, president of ACORN. ‘It was a judgment call at the time, and looking back, people can agree or disagree with it, but we did what we thought was right.'”

According to Strom, Wade Rathke “said the decision to keep the matter secret was not made to protect his brother but because word of the embezzlement would have put a ‘weapon’ into the hands of enemies of ACORN, a liberal group that is a frequent target of conservatives who object to its often strident advocacy on behalf of low- and moderate-income families and workers.”

http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/groupProfile.asp?grpid=6968

Inside Obama’s Acorn
By their fruits ye shall know them.

By Stanley Kurtz

“What if Barack Obama’s most important radical connection has been hiding in plain sight all along? Obama has had an intimate and long-term association with the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (Acorn), the largest radical group in America. If I told you Obama had close ties with MoveOn.org or Code Pink, you’d know what I was talking about. Acorn is at least as radical as these better-known groups, arguably more so. Yet because Acorn works locally, in carefully selected urban areas, its national profile is lower. Acorn likes it that way. And so, I’d wager, does Barack Obama.

This is a story we’ve largely missed. While Obama’s Acorn connection has not gone entirely unreported, its depth, extent, and significance have been poorly understood. Typically, media background pieces note that, on behalf of Acorn, Obama and a team of Chicago attorneys won a 1995 suit forcing the state of Illinois to implement the federal “motor-voter” bill. In fact, Obama’s Acorn connection is far more extensive. In the few stories where Obama’s role as an Acorn “leadership trainer” is noted, or his seats on the boards of foundations that may have supported Acorn are discussed, there is little follow-up. Even these more extensive reports miss many aspects of Obama’s ties to Acorn. …”

http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=NDZiMjkwMDczZWI5ODdjOWYxZTIzZGIyNzEyMjE0ODI=&w=MA==

Written Testimony Of James TerryChief Public AdvocateConsumers Rights League

Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Civil Liberties and

House Administration Subcommittee on Elections

Joint Hearing on

“Federal, State and Local efforts to Prepare for the General 2008 Election”

Wednesday, September 24, 2008 10:00 am

2141 Rayburn House Office Building

“…As part of CRL’s mandate, we monitor policy debates, news trends and the activities of organizations that style themselves as consumer advocates. Unfortunately, due to their long track record of questionable or corrupt practices with respect to housing and electoral activities, we are constantly forced to act as a watchdog for abuses by the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, or ACORN.

While all of the reported allegations noted in my statement are found in the public domain, such reports often go unnoticed by the national media. I therefore thank the Committee up front for focusing on these important issues confronting our country. …”

“…A Troubling and Long Pattern of Voter Registration Fraud “…The man who includes being a community organizer on his short resume has a long association with a far-left group that would organize our communities into socialist gulags.

In 1995, Illinois Gov. Jim Edgar balked at implementing the federal motor voter law out of concern that letting people register via postcard and blocking the state from pruning voter rolls might invite vote fraud.

A young lawyer, a community organizer himself, sued on behalf of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (Acorn) and won. The young lawyer was Barack Obama. Acorn later invited Obama to train its staff.

When Obama served on the board of the Woods Fund for Chicago with Weather Underground terrorist William Ayers, the Woods Fund frequently gave Acorn grants to fund its agenda and voter registration activities.

Acorn has been in the lead in opposing voter ID laws and other efforts to ensure ballot integrity. Acorn has been implicated in voter fraud and bogus registration schemes in Ohio and at least 13 other states. Acorn staffers will presumably be out registering voters again this year.

Obama also opposes voter ID laws. He believes they disenfranchise voters. Last year, Obama put a hold on the nomination of Hans von Spakovsky for a seat on the Federal Election Commission. It seems von Spakovsky, as an official in the Justice Department, had supported a Georgia photo ID law. Acorn espouses the leftist view that voter ID laws are racist.

In addition to subverting American democracy to promote a leftist agenda, Acorn’s radical agenda amounts to “undisguised authoritarian socialism.” wrote Sol Stern in the 2003 City Journal article, “Acorn’s Nutty Regime for Cities.”

Acorn opposed welfare reform and opposes securing American borders to stem the flow of illegal immigrants. Acorn was heavily involved a few years back in opposing Rudy Giuliani’s efforts to privatize failing New York schools. …”

http://www.ibdeditorials.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=302914868143810

Kill the bailout: More ACORN funding?! (vid link added)

By Michelle Malkin

“…Just heard from several readers that Lindsay Grahamnesty told Fox that the Mother of All Bailouts includes a reported $100 million more in funding for the left-wing housing entitlement thugs and heavily tax-subsidized fraudsters at ACORN. Under the original bailout proposal, apparently, a large portion of any repayment of the $700 billion would go to Barack Obama’s good friends at ACORN with a smaller allocation to debt repayment. Readers heard him say it was 20 percent.

Told you not to trust Hank Paulson. …”

http://michellemalkin.com/2008/09/25/kill-the-bailout-more-acorn-funding/

ACORN Watch: Targeting your kids

ACORN Watch, Pt II: Obama hid $800,000 payment to ACORN through “Citizen Services, Inc.” “…There’s much more to the story of Obama’s amended campaign finance reports than what Obama and the Obamedia will tell you. I will fill you in on what’s missing in a moment. What we have here, essentially, is Obama using a non-profit group called Citizens Services Inc. as a front to funnel payments to ACORN for campaign advance work. Obama officials say it’s no big deal. Nothing to see here. Move along. But where there’s left-wing laundering smoke, there’s fire. CSI has been the subject of a little-noticed complaint to the FEC by a Democrat who smelled something rotten going on between CSI, ACORN, and a left-wing 527, Communities Voting Together.

But first, the headline: …”

http://michellemalkin.com/2008/08/22/acorn-watch-pt-ii-obama-hid-800000-payment-to-acorn-through-citizen-services-inc/

Power and Control: The Best Congress Fannie Mae Could Buy

By M. Simon

“…Which brings us to the Fannie Mae Foundation. A sweet little set up for handing out cash to a nice little outfit called ACORN among others. Here are a few of the grants to ACORN.

ACORN Housing Corporation – Dallas
Dallas, TX $20,000 approved in 1993
Support of a housing counseling program.

ACORN Housing Corporation – Little Rock
Little Rock, AR $1,000 approved in 1997
Ninth Maxwell Awards of Excellence honorable mention grant for a 9-unit affordable homeownership project using sweat equity.

ACORN Housing Corporation – Washington, DC
Washington, DC $3,386 approved in 1994
Support of computer equipment necessary to operate the Desktop Home Counselor.

ACORN Housing Corporation of Illinois
Chicago, IL $3,386 approved in 1994
Support of the purchase of computer equipment required to operate the Desktop Home Counselor.

ACORN Housing Corporation of Illinois
Chicago, IL $35,000 approved in 1994
Support of the placement of Americorps members with homeownership counseling programs.

ACORN Housing Corporation-National
Chicago, IL $100,000 approved in 2004
General operating support of an organization that helps families of limited means to secure and protect decent housing by providing housing counseling services, building homes, and educating policy makers in Chicago, IL; Phoenix, AZ; and Brooklyn, NY

OK so ACORN helps people who were barely qualified or totally unqualified get housing. So what would they be doing? Finding landlords who would rent to them? Well no. Landlords want to get paid. Fannie Mae had no such scruples. Ever hear of NINJA mortgages? Funny name, huh? It stand for No Income, No Job, No Assets. Just the kind of reliable folk honest lenders are looking for. People with a credit score of ∅.

http://powerandcontrol.blogspot.com/2008/09/best-congress-fannie-could-buy.html

ACORN Watch: Voter fraud and mortgage scams on your dime

By Michelle Malkin

“…Barack Obama’s taxpayer-subsidized old friends at ACORN have been very, very busy lately. And ACORN Watch is here to give you the rundown on all the latest shenanigans on your dime.

* In Milwaukee, election officials are investigating fake names registered by ACORN workers– a favorite voter fraud 101 ploy of ACORN workers. …”

http://michellemalkin.com/2008/08/07/acorn-watch-voter-fraud-and-mortgage-scams-on-your-dime/

ACORN – CSI – OBAMA. Someone else noticed!

“…It appears that Internet based information sites are not the only venues who have been tracking the goings on between Obama, CSI and ACORN. Recently the New York Times reported a mild suggestion of conspiracy between ACORN staff, employees of CCI (Citizens Consulting, Inc. – yet another 1024 resident) and Tides Foundation, to not talk about the Rathke ACORN embezzlement affair. It was spotted in the
Pittsburgh Tribune Review Wednesday in an Op-Ed titled: “Tides of ‘transparency’”, and subtitled appropriately: “keep your yaps shut.” Quotes the editorial:

“..is quite an irony for a bunch of leftists who have been known to yap at others for their lack of transparency.”

In today’s issue of the Tribune-Review there is a headline:

GOP: CAMPAIGN TRIED TO HIDE TIES WITH ACORN
Obama to mend spending report

U.S. Sen. Barack Obama’s presidential campaign paid more than $800,000 to an offshoot of the liberal Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now for services the Democrat’s campaign says it mistakenly misrepresented in federal reports.

http://noquarterusa.net/blog/2008/08/22/acorn-%E2%80%93-csi-%E2%80%93-obama-someone-else-noticed/

Obama’s Ties To ACORN More Substantial than first believed

Rick Moran

“…Obama’s connection to this group has been shadowy – some work he did back in 1995 representing an effort by the group to get the courts to force Illinois to adopt the motor voter law. But Stanley Kurtz has uncovered even more ties that Obama has to this radical group:

The extent of Obama’s ties to Acorn has not been recognized. We find some important details in an article in the journal Social Policy entitled, “Case Study: Chicago – The Barack Obama Campaign,” by Toni Foulkes, a Chicago Acorn leader and a member of Acorn’s National Association Board. The odd thing about this article is that Foulkes is forced to protect the technically “non-partisan” status of Acorn’s get-out-the-vote campaigns, even as he does everything in his power to give Acorn credit for helping its favorite son win the critical 2004 primary that secured Obama the Democratic nomination to the U.S. Senate.

Before giving us a tour of Acorn’s pro-Obama but somehow “non-partisan” election activities, Foulks treats us to a brief history of Obama’s ties to Acorn. While most press accounts imply that Obama just happened to be at the sort of public-interest law firm that would take Acorn’s “motor voter” case, Foulkes claims that Acorn specifically sought out Obama’s representation in the motor voter case, remembering Obama from the days when he worked with Talbot. And while many reports speak of Obama’s post-law school role organizing “Project VOTE” in 1992, Foulkes makes it clear that this project was undertaken in direct partnership with Acorn. Foulkes then stresses Obama’s yearly service as a key figure in Acorn’s leadership-training seminars.

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.

Not surprisingly it turns out that Reverend Jeremiah Wright and Father Michael Pfleger – two radical clergy closely associated with Obama – have extensive ties to ACORN . Their views fit nicely within the ACORN anti-capitalist agenda that they have been pushing for years….”

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2008/05/obamas_ties_to_acorn_more_subs.html

‘Community Organizing’ Deserves to be Ridiculed

September 6th, 2008 by Matthew Vadum

“…Then there’s the vote fraud factory known as the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now or ACORN. ACORN describes itself as “the nation’s largest community organization of low- and moderate-income families, working together for social justice and stronger communities.” ACORN, Sol Stern writes, “promotes a 1960s-bred agenda of anti-capitalism, central planning, victimology, and government handouts to the poor.”

Obama previously worked for ACORN, directing its voter mobilization arm, Project Vote, a successful voter registration campaign that helped propel Democrat Carol Moseley Braun into the U.S. Senate by adding an estimated 125,000 voters to the rolls. Project Vote claims to conduct “non-partisan” voter registration drives, counsels potential voters on their rights, and litigates on behalf of the poor and “disenfranchised.”

Its greatest legislative accomplishment is the National Voter Registration Act of 1993, commonly known as Motor Voter. In his book Stealing Elections, Wall Street Journal columnist John Fund argues that the law leads to voter fraud:

Perhaps no piece of legislation in the last generation better captures the ‘incentivizing’ of fraud… than the 1993 National Voter Registration Act…Examiners were under orders not to ask anyone for identification or proof of citizenship. States also had to permit mail-in voter registrations, which allowed anyone to register without any personal contact with a registrar or election official. Finally, states were limited in pruning ‘dead wood’ – people who had died, moved or been convicted of crimes – from their rolls. … Since its implementation, Motor Voter has worked in one sense: it has fueled an explosion of phantom voters.”

In 1995, Obama sued on behalf of ACORN for the implementation of Motor Voter laws in Illinois and won. That secured Obama an invitation to train ACORN staff. Obama later returned the favor when, as a member of the Woods Fund board, he approved frequent grants to ACORN. …”

http://www.capitalresearch.org/blog/?p=273

Obama’s Three Strikes

By J.R. Dunn

“…A terrorist bomber, what may be the largest vote-fraud operation in history, and a political party calling for a socialist revolution in the United States. Obama has certainly been a busy little bee — though not too busy, it seems, to cover his tracks in all three cases. As well he might — anybody with such a history has a few questions to answer. And Obama knows this full well, considering the effort he’s put into ducking those exact questions since his campaign began.

But those questions must be asked and answered before November 4^th. Which, needless to say, is a job for Superwoman. Sarah Palin’s relentless hammering brought the Ayers story back to the surface. She must now tie the three strands together: Ayers, ACORN, the New Party, and pound at it until it can no longer be ignored. (Of course, this will be an extremely upsetting experience for Kathleen Parker and David Brooks, but that can’t be helped.)

If the three can be bundled, and the resulting package adequately presented to the American people, Barack Obama is through. American voters have made it clear time and again that they have no use for the political extremes of either left or right. Obama plainly suffers, at best, from a weakness for crackpot left-wing politics, and at worst from a yearning to create a revolutionary situation in American society. The first reveals an immature personality, one easily led and given to romantic concepts of how the world works. The second is evidence of serious maliciousness.

We require neither in the oval office.”

http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/10/obamas_three_strikes_1.html

Is America Ready for Obama? Is America Ready for a Socialist?

“…But, his socialist foundation was probably shaped most during those early days at the Socialist (Marxist) conferences he attended in New York City:

Obama wrote that the wealth and stark racial divisions of Manhattan in the early 1980s had a profound effect on him…
He went to socialist conferences at Cooper Union and African cultural fairs in Brooklyn and started lecturing his relatives until they worried he’d become “one of those freaks you see on the streets around here.”

So, the real question that USA Today should be asking- but won’t -is not if America is ready for a “rookie” in the White House, but rather, if America is ready for a socialist in the White House!”

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/1768917/pos

Obama and His Socialist Agenda

Rick Moran

“We all knew that Barak Obama was liberal. But just how devoted he is to the nanny state has been a pretty well kept secret by both the Senator and his campaign. In fact, if you read most mainstream media accounts of where the Senator stands on a host of issues, you might think he was a candidate of the center or slightly left of Hillary Clinton. There has been much more discussion of Obama’s “themes” of empowerment and unity than there has been of specific policy proposals.

But Obama let his true colors show yesterday in a speech in Washington, D.C. about urban poverty. His “solutions” will sound familiar to those who listened to Lyndon Johnson’s poverty gurus and their fellow travelers under Jimmy Carter’s presidency. Promising massive government assistance with the help of private businesses (help that never seems to be asked for when the programs hit the streets), Obama goes Johnson one better by promising to empower unions to organize (read “intimidate”) just about everyone:

When I’m President, I will raise the minimum wage and make it a living wage by making sure that it rises every time the cost of living does. I’ll start letting our unions do what they do best again – organize our workers and lift up our middle-class. And I’ll finally make sure every American has affordable health care that stays with you no matter what happens by passing my plan to provide universal coverage and cut the cost of health care by up to $2500 per family.

And this 1960’s-style rhetoric about poverty should be a dead giveaway for those knowledgeable about how the left speaks in code words to mask their true intent:

The philosophy behind the project is simple – if poverty is a disease that infects an entire community in the form of unemployment and violence; failing schools and broken homes, then we can’t just treat those symptoms in isolation. We have to heal that entire community. And we have to focus on what actually works.

If Obama and his socialist friends were to focus on what “actually works,” they would make school choice the law of the land, crack down on drugs and gangs, lower taxes in urban areas to encourage the growth of the private sector, and a host of other free market solutions that have been advocated for decades. Instead, we get the same old tired bromides about government intervention. …”
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2007/07/obama_and_his_socialist_agenda.html

BARACK OBAMA, ACORN, & VOTER FRAUD……STEALING THE ELECTION IN BATTLEGROUND STATES FOR OBAMA!!

ACORN voter fraud in OHIO – October 2008

ACORN Obama and the Bailout

OBAMA’S ACORN EXPOSED PART 1 OF 2

OBAMA’S ACORN EXPOSED PART 2 OF 2

Rep. Waters Speaks About Obama at ACORN

What is a Community Organizer?

Lou Dobbs – Electoral Fraud Threat to Democracy

ACORN Obama and the Bailout

OBAMA’S ACORN EXPOSED PART 1 OF 2

OBAMA’S ACORN EXPOSED PART 2 OF 2

Rep. Waters Speaks About Obama at ACORN

What is a Community Organizer?

Lou Dobbs – Electoral Fraud Threat to Democracy

Obama complicit in voter fraud? — Obama’s ACORN connection

Acorn / Voter Fraud / Obama and Community Organizers

More ACORN Allegations

ACORN Vote Fraud

Representative from ACORN

ACORN Convention Member Speak Out