Thursday, February 26, 2009

Mega Tax Money to ACORN: Marxism via 'Stimulus' or 'Reinvestment' Act

This was just received, via email from WorldNetDaily.com, posted without detailed analysis and your comments and pertinent contributions are very welcome.

Keep in mind I.O's warning: all the Obama/Pelosi regime has to do, to be successful neo-Marxists is to:

1. raise the armies of the proletariat (e.g., the ACORN hydra)
2. weaken the entrepreneurial, investing, middle class -- the bourgeoisie

In other words: institutionally "reinvest," i.e., rob those honestly working to stand on our own two feet and provide for our families and charity (according to Scripture and common sense) and give it to Obama's thug army. Note how even the formal name of this act, "American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009" is thematic with one of the acts which created the crisis it porports to solve, the "Community Reinvestment Act."

Beware of state "reinvestment" of your livelihood. Whenever you see "reinvestment," I.O. suggests you think "redistribution," i.e., Marxist insurrection.
The American Conservative Union

Dear Conservative Friends,

I almost can't believe it.


Liberal Democrats slipped into the so-called "Economic Stimulus" bill a provision to give millions, if not billions, of dollars to ACORN.

You remember ACORN, the ultra left wing group that has been accused of voter fraud and funneling millions of dollars in taxpayer money into liberal political activism.

ACU raised awareness about ACORN in the last election campaign. They were raided by FBI agents and investigated for falsifying thousands of voter registration records. We produced short documentary videos on ACORN; their ties to left wing groups, the Obama campaign paying them for voter turnout and other activities. Worse, we showed that ACORN was actually involved in the push for subprime loans and the mortgage meltdown that has driven down our economy. If you have not seen our short videos, you can see them here on our ACORN action page: http://www.conservative.org/acornaction.html

Now, the Democrats in Congress are trying to give ACORN millions - even billions - more of our taxpayer dollars.

[I.O.: fundraising appeal edited out]*

You may have read that the House passed a version of the so-called Stimulus Bill without any Republican votes. The Senate passed their version. The liberals who control the Congress worked out a deal to get a final bill to the President. With his signature on the bill we must be prepared to act in order to fight back against ACORN getting any of these funds.

We need to act on this issue now and we must be prepared to fight to stop the monies from actually being disbursed to ACORN.

House Republican Leader John Boehner raised the alarm when they discovered that buried in the first version of the then trillion dollar spending bill approved by the House Appropriations Committee was a provision for over 4 billion dollars to go to "neighborhood stabilization activities."


Instead of providing these funds just to state and local governments, the bills said funds can go to "States, units of general local government, and nonprofit entities or consortia of nonprofit entities."

Why did the Liberals who control U.S. House under Nancy Pelosi slip that language into the bill?

Because the "non-profit entities" are units of ACORN.


[I.O.: fundraising appeal edited out]*

Boehner noted that, "The House Democrats' trillion dollar spending bill also includes $1 billion for the Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) Program." He then went on to point out that ACORN reports filed with the Office of Management and Budget shows that ACORN spent almost 1.6 million in federal taxpayer Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) Program funds from 2003 through 2007. Now they are going to come back for more.

Boehner's analysis also shows that ACORN has been awarded more than $53 million in taxpayer dollars over the last several years. This amount does not reflect the millions more ACORN has received in federal block grant funds awarded to state and local agencies which passed them on to ACORN.

[I.O.: fundraising appeal edited out]*

President Obama and the liberal Democrats in Congress have said that they want this trillion dollar stimulus bill to create jobs in America. What they haven't said is that this is becoming part of a political pay-off bill to reward their liberal friends with billions of dollars in taxpayer money.

What is sad is that our economic crisis was in part caused by these very same groups who are now seeking to get their hands on billions of dollars in taxpayer funds
.

As our video and other documentation pointed out, ACORN pressured lenders and regulatory agencies to promote subprime loans, a chief culprit in our economic collapse. In turn they received millions from the mortgage companies themselves and in turn Obama's friends at Fannie Mae reaped millions more in the process. And, it should be noted that Joe Biden's new Vice Presidential Chief of Staff is a former lobbyist for Fannie Mae.


Now, ACORN is set to receive funds from the stimulus package.

This has to end. The revolving door of political and financial interests that have led our country to economic collapse must be stopped. We must push back against this effort to give funds to a group that has shown it is directly involved in liberal political action and voter fraud.

We need your help to fight back. We want to flood Capitol Hill and the news media with petitions against these attempts to take our tax dollars and give them to left-wing advocacy groups. Please go here, now to sign our ACU ACORN Stimulus bill petition and support ACU on this critical endeavor to stop ACORN from ever receiving any of these funds..
[I.O.: fundraising appeal left in]*

Thank you for your help with this important effort to shine the light on efforts to give billions to ACORN.

Sincerely,
n1710082_4090DWhitfield.jpg
Dennis Whitfield
Executive Vice President


P.S. President Barack Obama's campaign gave more than $800,000 to ACORN for voter turnout and in turn they were raided and investigated for voter fraud and now the liberals in Congress are trying to reward them with millions - even billions - in taxpayer funds. Please help us fight back now!
What members of Congress but traitors voted for this treason against the identifying and foundational principles of the United States of America?

* This is not posted as a recommendation of any particular fundraising entity over another. Some de-emphasizing by I.O.

The views and statements expressed by Investigating Obama contributors, and in quotations and citations, are their own and do not necessarily reflect the position of Investigating Obama and Arlen Williams.

7 comments:

Victor said...

Arlen, perhaps this article concerning the stimulus bill and ACORN might help your audience separate the competing claims:

Q: Does the stimulus bill include a $5.2 billion payoff for ACORN?
I would appreciate having FactCheck.org look into whether ACORN will receive $5.23 billion from the Obama stimulus package under the guise of "stabilizing neighborhoods." I have been bombarded by e-mails from an acquaintance about this. What can you find about this? Thank you.

A: The bill does include funds for which ACORN would be eligible to compete - against hundreds of other groups. But most is for a housing rehabilitation program ACORN says it never applied for in the past and won't in the future.

For the past two weeks, Republicans have been raising a new charge against a familiar enemy, claiming that the Democrats' stimulus bill includes as much as $5.2 billion in "goodies" for the Association of Community Organization for Reform Now (ACORN). Last fall, Republicans accused ACORN of "massive voter fraud," a claim which we said was exaggerated. The group has since become a favorite target of Republicans, so it understandably raises a few hackles when House Republican leader John Boehner's Web site proclaims that the bill provides "a taxpayer-funded bonanza" for ACORN. And Republican Sen. David Vitter goes even further, telling Newsmax TV that the provisions amount to "a political payoff." Also, the National Republican Trust PAC has taken up the issue in fundraising pitches. But these claims are wildly exaggerated and rely upon faulty logic.

Let's start with the (very few) claims that critics get right. The House version of the stimulus bill does indeed include about $1 billion in funding for the Community Development Block Grants (CDBG) program and another $4.2 billion ($2.2 billion in the Senate's version) in funding for the Neighborhood Stabilization Program (NSP). Neither program is new: CDBG has been around since President Ford (a Republican) signed it into law in 1974, while the NSP was authorized in 2008 as part of the Housing and Economic Recovery Act signed into law by President Bush.

On its Web site, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, which runs both programs, describes CDBG as "a flexible program that provides communities with resources to address a wide range of unique community development needs." But those funds cannot be used for anything resembling ACORN's controversial voter registration programs. HUD has very strict rules for projects that can be funded through CDBG grants, including promotion of home ownership and micro-enterprise assistance. ACORN has long been eligible for CDBG funds, and Boehner's Web site points out that the group has received almost $1.6 million (not billion) in CDBG grants over a four-year span.

NSP's mission is more limited: Its funds are used to purchase foreclosed or abandoned homes, redevelop and then resell them, with the aim of stabilizing home prices. Boehner and Vitter claimed to smell a rat in the stimulus package's language that allows nonprofit entities to compete directly for NSP funds. When the NSP was created last year, only state and local governments were eligible to participate in the program. The new language in the stimulus bill, Republicans argue, is a way to funnel money to ACORN.

We make no judgments about the wisdom of allowing nonprofits to compete with state and local governments for NSP funds. Is this a "payoff" or "goodies" for liberal allies, or for ACORN specifically? Actually, both programs hand out grants only on a competitive basis. ACORN – and any other nonprofit entity – would be eligible to compete for NSP funds (as it already does for CDBG funds), but the key words here are "eligible" and "compete."

Competition would likely be stiff. In 2008, NSP's first year, states handed out funds to a total of 308 grantees. The NSP rules would require ACORN to show that it would spend the money to renovate and resell foreclosed homes more efficiently than other applicants.

Moreover, ACORN is already indirectly eligible for NSP money; current law permits state and local governments to subcontract work, and ACORN would be eligible to compete for funds at the local level. However, ACORN didn't get any NSP money last year and says it doesn't plan to apply for NSP money in the future. Indeed, renovating foreclosed properties is not something the group has done in the past; its efforts in the home-buying industry focus mainly on developing new affordable housing and eliminating what it calls "predatory financial practices" by mortgage lenders. The group's chief organizer, Bertha Lewis, writes:

Lewis: We have not received neighborhood stabilization funds, have no plans to apply for such funds, and didn't weigh in on the pending rule changes.

Faulty Logic

Boehner and Vitter commit two logical fallacies. Their argument has the form:

1. The stimulus bill provides funding for redeveloping neighborhoods.
2. ACORN does work in redeveloping neighborhoods.
3. Therefore the stimulus bill provides funding for ACORN.

That's an example of what philosophers call the undistributed middle fallacy. It's a common mistake; in May 2008, we caught Sen. John McCain making a similar logical blunder. But Boehner and Vitter compound their error by treating different terms as if they had the same meaning. ACORN does indeed work in redeveloping neighborhoods, but the work that it does is not the same sort of work for which NSP provides funding. By pretending as if the two are the same, Boehner and Vitter commit the fallacy of equivocation.

We're accustomed to seeing logical fallacies in political arguments. But working two of them into a single argument is unusually bad logic.

-Joe Miller

Sources
"ACORN Could Get Billions from Democrats' Trillion Dollar Spending Plan." 23 January 2009. House Republican Leader John Boehner. 5 February 2009.

"Community Development Block Grant Program - CDBG." 9 December 2008. U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. 5 February 2009.

H.R.1: American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. 5 February 2009.

"Neighborhood Stabilization Program Grants." 3 February 2009. U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. 5 February 2009.

S.1: American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. 5 February 2009.

"Sen. Vitter: ACORN Getting 'Political Payoff'." 29 January 2009. Newsmax.com. 6 February 2009.

"Statement from ACORN Chief Organizer Bertha Lewis in Response to Statement from U.S. Rep. John Boehner." 28 January 2009. ACORN.org. 5 February 2009.

Arlen Williams said...

Thank you, Victor, you have pointed out that this "housing" label covers a vast slush-fund jungle. Perhaps no one by the Marxist operatives involved know just how all of this Citizen-confiscated money will be "appropriated."

The funneling of government and foundation money is a great expertise of Marxist and pink-leftist organizations. There is no one "ACORN." Instead, there is a large, hydra-headed operation, with one entity grabbing money one way and another applying money in another way.

Arlen Williams said...

Also, quoting FactCheck.org will not gain much credibility. It is a twisted operation funded by funnelers of Annenberg money. Witness their "birth certificate" spin.

Whenever they make claims which defend leftist operations, leftist operatives, and leftist politicians, it is an alarm calling concerned Citizens to dig deeper and look beyond their "benign" assertions.

Victor said...

Arlen, no matter what your opinion is of FactCheck, you'll note that they provide sources to support their work. That makes it easy to independently confirm or deny their claims.

As far as their being a "twisted operation funded by funnelers of Annenberg money," that's quite simply untrue.

FactCheck is a project of the Annenberg Public Policy Center (APPC) of the University of Pennsylvania. APPC was founded in 1994 by Walter Annenberg, philanthropist and prominent Republican in his time. The University of Pennsylvania is one of the nation's oldest universities and a member of the Ivy League. Neither organization can credibly be referred to as a "twisted operation."

Arlen Williams said...

Victor,

What is your assessment of the degree to which leftists and Marxists have infiltrated charitable trusts in the western world?

Victor said...

Arlen,

I've never given the question any thought before now.

From a quick Google search, I see that the website manta.com lists 2,672 company profiles for "Trusts: Educational, Religious, Etc. Companies" in the United States. (1) The top 20 in terms of revenue are as follows:

Robert R Mc Cormick Tribune Foundation Chicago, IL
New York Community Trust And Community Funds Inc HQ, New York, NY
Decatur Memorial Foundation Decatur, IL
Kaiser, Henry J Family Foundation Inc HQ, Menlo Park, CA
Easter Seals, Inc HQ, Chicago, IL
J A And Kathryn Albertson Foundation, Inc Boise, ID
Faf Advisors, Inc HQ, Minneapolis, MN
Rasmussen College Systems HQ, Lake Elmo, MN
The University Of Mississippi Foundation HQ, Oxford, MS
Perverted Justice Foundation, Inc Hermosa Beach, CA
Otto Bremer Foundation HQ, Saint Paul, MN
California Pacific Medical Center Foundation HQ, San Francisco, CA
Staubach Co Addison, TX
The Hektoen Institute For Medical Research L L C Chicago, IL
The Marshall University Foundation Huntington, WV
Sei Trust Company Oaks, PA
Universal Leaf Foundation Richmond, VA
At&T Pioneers Kingsburg, CA
Hackett Foundation Inc Clinton, NJ
Grant/Riverside Medical Care Foundation, Inc Columbus, OH

Of the 20, I can't say that any of them reflect values that could be considered either "leftist" or "Marxist" in the commonly-accepted uses of those terms.

If, however, your point is to highlight how groups like these are changing in some ways to reflect a different set of goals or values than when they were first established, I'd be happy to hear what you have to say.

A question, if I may: when you say "infiltrated," do you really mean that agents (for lack of a better word) representing leftist and/or Marxist agendas are actively steering, if not controlling, charitable trusts for the purposes of advancing their own agendas instead of the original goals of the trusts? Without clear evidence, that might come across as somewhat provocative and conspiracist.

Victor

Sources:
1: http://www.manta.com/mb_35_A12DC000_000/trusts_educational_religious_etc_

Arlen Williams said...


A question, if I may: when you say "infiltrated," do you really mean that agents (for lack of a better word) representing leftist and/or Marxist agendas are actively steering, if not controlling, charitable trusts for the purposes of advancing their own agendas instead of the original goals of the trusts? Without clear evidence, that might come across as somewhat provocative and conspiracist.


Victor, be a comment-researcher for Investigating Obama - want to?

Do some googling on the "Ford Foundation" and Marxism or Communism, if you like. Also "Ford Foundation" and "Stanley Ann" -- also "Ford Foundation" and Giethner. Tell me what you find.

I mean that, plus Marxists learning how to bilk foundations, left and... left.