Gingrich On the $700 Billion Paulson Plan

Another politician who makes much more sense once he leaves office then when he was in office. HT2rpm

Note: The left wing organization that Gingrich refers to but does not name, that received millions from last summers housing bailout bill, is ACORN, where Obama once worked as a "leadership teacher".

Obama-ACORN Root Causes of Mortgage Crisis?

A Republican front organization, AmeriPac, is sending an email out linking Barack Obama to the mortgage crisis. The email is a bit of a stretch, but not a complete stretch. The mortgage crisis was chiefly caused by the easy money printed by the Federal Reserve during the Alan Greenspan era and the early-Ben Bernanke era, and by the econometricians who used faulty equations to justify the financing of sub-prime mortgages. That said, the banking industry's heavy focus on sub-prime mortgages was also influenced by heavy lobbying pressure by left wing groups to provide mortgages to minorities and the poor. Chief among the agitating groups was ACORN, which is an extremely powerful group that the general public has little awareness of.

Obama has ties to ACORN as a "leadership" teacher for the organization, and he seems to keep an eye out to ensure that funding heads their way whenever he is in a position to influence such funding.

Here are key excerpts from the AmeriPac email:

The high-risk subprime mortgage social engineering community service experiment by left-wing ACORN and Obama has created the largest financial crisis since The Great Depression. The full reach of the corruption and scandal may never be known but those who created it must not be rewarded. The architects, primarily left-wing Democrats, created laws, took donations, looked the other way and instead were too busy overseeing donations to their own presidential campaigns and robbing main street blind. Now these same left-wing Democrats blame everyone else and get up on their high horses and say, "we are here to save you" from the crises they created.

Yes, Mr. Obama knows a great deal about the mess. He is a central figure in the left-wing ACORN exploitation of financial institutions and pressuring them to make high risk loans. The very same left-wing ACORN was guilty of voter fraud in the last presidential election.

Now these same Democrats want to do another high risk "community service," social engineering experiment. They want to elect a high-risk, low experience, socialist one of the same community organizers that created the mess to be our next president...

Fannie and Freddie acted in response to Clinton administration pressure to boost homeownership rates among minorities and the poor. However compassionate the motive, the result of this systematic disregard for normal credit standards has been financial disaster. ONE key pioneer of ACORN's subprime-loan shakedown racket was Madeline Talbott - an activist with extensive ties to Barack Obama. She was also in on the ground floor of the disastrous turn in Fannie Mae's mortgage policies.

t would be tough to find an "on the ground" community organizer more closely tied to the subprime-mortgage fiasco than Madeline Talbott. And no one has been more supportive of Madeline Talbott than Barack Obama.

When Obama was just a budding community organizer in Chicago, Talbott was so impressed that she asked him to train her personal staff.

He returned to Chicago in the early '90s, just as Talbott was starting her pressure campaign on local banks. In those years, he also conducted leadership-training seminars for ACORN's up-and-coming organizers. That is, Obama was training the army of ACORN organizers who participated in Madeline Talbott's drive against Chicago's banks.

More than that, Obama was funding them. As he rose to a leadership role at Chicago's Woods Fund, he became the most powerful voice on the foundation's board for supporting ACORN and other community organizers. In 1995, the Woods Fund substantially expanded its funding of community organizers - and Obama chaired the committee that urged and managed the shift.

That committee's report on strategies for funding groups like ACORN features all the key names in Obama's organizer network. The report quotes Talbott more than any other figure; Sandra Maxwell, Talbott's ACORN ally in the bank battle, was also among the organizers consulted.

More, the Obama-supervised Woods Fund report acknowledges the problem of getting donors and foundations to contribute to radical groups like ACORN - whose confrontational tactics often scare off even liberal donors and foundations.

Indeed, the report brags about pulling the wool over the public's eye. The Woods Fund's claim to be "nonideological," it says, has "enabled the Trustees to make grants to organizations that use confrontational tactics against the business and government 'establishments' without undue risk of being criticized for partisanship."

The Woods Fund report makes it clear Obama was fully aware of the intimidation tactics used by ACORN's Madeline Talbott in her pioneering efforts to force banks to suspend their usual credit standards. Yet he supported Talbott in every conceivable way. He trained her personal staff and other aspiring ACORN leaders, he consulted with her extensively, and he arranged a major boost in foundation funding for her efforts.

And, as the leader of another charity, the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, Obama channeled more funding Talbott's way - ostensibly for education projects but surely supportive of ACORN's overall efforts.

In return, Talbott proudly announced her support of Obama's first campaign for state Senate, saying, "We accept and respect him as a kindred spirit, a fellow organizer."

In short, to understand the roots of the subprime mortgage crisis, look to ACORN's Madeline Talbott. And to see how Talbott was able to work her mischief, look to Barack Obama.

Bleg

If anyone knows of any connection between Obama economic advisor, Jason Furman, and the extreme left wing organizaton, ACORN, please email me details.

Thanks.

RW

"Housing" Bill Includes Funds For Obama Affiliated Left Wing Organization

The "Housing" Bill surprises just keep on popping up.

Earlier this month, we reported on a shadowy, powerful left wing organization that Barack Obama worked for, ACORN.

The housing bill signed Wednesday by GW will provide funds for various nonprofit groups that are involved in the housing market. One of the biggest likely beneficiaries, despite Republican objections, will be ACORN. ACORN in one of its poses is a housing advocacy group that also helps lead ambitious voter-registration efforts benefiting Democrats.

ACORN is made up of several legally distinct groups under that name. It's voter mobilization arm is co-managing a $15.9 million campaign with the group Project Vote to register 1.2 million low-income Hispanics and African-Americans, who are among those most likely to vote Democratic. "Technically" nonpartisan, the effort is one of the largest such voter-registration drives on record.

Obama was a member of ACORN and taught leadership conferences for the group while working for Miner, Barnhill & Galland, according to No Quarter. Obama actively sought and received the endorsement by ACORN for his local campaigns. He has now done the same in his bid for the USA presidency, says No Quarter.

In a Spring 2003 article for City Journal, titled, ACORN’s Nutty Regime for Cities, Sol Stern reported on the organization:

If you thought the New Left was dead in America, think again. Walk through just about any of the nation’s inner cities, and you’re likely to find an office of ACORN, bustling with young people working 12-hour days to “organize the poor” and bring about “social change.” The largest radical group in the country, ACORN has 120,000 dues-paying members, chapters in 700 poor neighborhoods in 50 cities, and 30 years’ experience...

[ACORN]promotes a 1960s-bred agenda of anti-capitalism, central planning, victimology, and government handouts to the poor....

ACORN’s bedrock assumption remains the ultra-Left’s familiar anti-capitalist redistributionism. “We are the majority, forged from all the minorities,” reads the group’s “People’s Platform,”...“We will continue our fight . . . until we have shared the wealth, until we have won our freedom . . .
. "

ACORN has perfected an in-your-face strategy that works effectively at capturing public attention and winning adherents in cities......there’s one....crucial respect in which ACORN departs from the old New Left’s playbook. Instead of trying to overturn “the system”—to blow it up...—ACORN burrows deep within the system, taking over its power and using its institutions for its own purposes...

According to WSJ:

The organization's main advocacy group lobbied hard for passage of the housing bill, which provides nearly $5 billion for affordable housing, financial counseling and mortgage restructuring for people and neighborhoods affected by the housing meltdown. A third Acorn arm, its housing corporation, does a large share of that work on the ground.

Acorn's multiple roles show how two fronts of activism -- housing for the poor and voter mobilization -- have converged closely in this election year. The fortunes of both parties will hinge in part on their plans for addressing the fall of the nation's housing market and the painful economic slowdown. Some of the places buffeted worst by mounting foreclosures are states whose voters could swing the election. Five battleground states where Acorn has registration drives were among the top 10 states for foreclosure rates as of June: Colorado, Florida, Nevada, Michigan and Ohio...

Republicans critical of Acorn's roles say any money that it gets for housing makes it easier for the group to put money into voter drives. "These are taxpayer funds, in an indirect method, being used to subsidize political activism," says Rep. Jeb Hensarling, Texas Republican and chairman of the conservative House Republican Study Committee. "I'm sure they're not going out and registering any Republicans."..

Acorn worker Stephanie Willis was scouting for new voters in a seedy neighborhood of Aurora, Colo., a Denver suburb. Spotting a woman seated on a park bench, Mrs. Willis hustled over and thrust a clipboard and pen at her. Within minutes, Brenda Hernandez was a new registered voter. Mrs. Willis then handed Mrs. Hernandez a flier listing Acorn's housing and other services, and signed her up to be an Acorn member
.
"Obama!" Mrs. Hernandez yelled, attempting to fist-bump Mrs. Willis, who already was scanning for other people to register.

Obama's Ties To ACORN

More ties to the radical left have surfaced in Barack Obama's past. The latest stem from his involvement with the activist group, ACORN.

According to its web site, ACORN (an acronym for 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.

Obama was a member of ACORN and taught leadership conferences for the group while working for Miner, Barnhill & Galland, according to No Quarter. Obama actively sought and received the endorsement by ACORN for his local campaigns. He has now done the same in his bid for the USA presidency, says No Quarter.

So what is ACORN all about?

In a Spring 2003 article for City Journal, titled, ACORN’s Nutty Regime for Cities, Sol Stern reported on the organization:

If you thought the New Left was dead in America, think again. Walk through just about any of the nation’s inner cities, and you’re likely to find an office of ACORN, bustling with young people working 12-hour days to “organize the poor” and bring about “social change.” The largest radical group in the country, ACORN has 120,000 dues-paying members, chapters in 700 poor neighborhoods in 50 cities, and 30 years’ experience...

[ACORN]promotes a 1960s-bred agenda of anti-capitalism, central planning, victimology, and government handouts to the poor....

ACORN’s bedrock assumption remains the ultra-Left’s familiar anti-capitalist redistributionism. “We are the majority, forged from all the minorities,” reads the group’s “People’s Platform,”...“We will continue our fight . . . until we have shared the wealth, until we have won our freedom . . . . "

ACORN has perfected an in-your-face strategy that works effectively at capturing public attention and winning adherents in cities...

...there’s one....crucial respect in which ACORN departs from the old New Left’s playbook. Instead of trying to overturn “the system”—to blow it up...—ACORN burrows deep within the system, taking over its power and using its institutions for its own purposes...

Accordingly, the group wants to make it much harder for firms and middle-class taxpayers to escape the urban central planner’s grasp. ACORN promotes ideas like “sustainable development,” which would limit the growth of suburbs—so businesses and individuals can’t flee just beyond the city limits so easily—and “regional government,” which would force suburbs to share their tax revenues with cities, so that overburdened middle-class taxpayers can’t vote with their feet against the cities’ ever expanding social-democratic mini-welfare states.

At times, ACORN opts for undisguised authoritarian socialism, as when it proposes that “large companies which desire to leave the community” be forced to obtain “an exit visa from the community board signifying that the company has adequately compensated all its employees and the community at large for losses due to relocation...

And ACORN has nothing on Al Sharpton, when it comes to the shakedown. Stern again:

ACORN has developed a lucrative niche as an “advisor” to banks seeking regulatory approvals. Thus we have J. P. Morgan & Company, 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. This act of generosity and civic-mindedness came, interestingly, just as Morgan was asking bank regulators for approval of a merger with Chase Manhattan. Not to be outdone, Chase also decided to grant more than $200,000 to ACORN...

...one prominent consultant to the financial industry, who preferred to remain anonymous, admits: “The banks know they are being held up, but they are not going to fight over this. They look at it as a cost of doing business.”

Much has been made, of late, of Obama's move to the center on certain high profile issues, but an understanding of Obama's associations with the radical left results in only one interpretation that can made of recent Obama speeches, such as his recent speech on July 2. The conclusion being that he continues to hold extreme left wing beliefs.

In the July 2 speech, he said:

The non-profit sector employs 1 in 12 Americans and 115 nonprofits are launched every day. Yet while the federal government invests $7 billion in research and development for the private sector, there is no similar effort to support non-profit innovation. Meanwhile, there are ideas across America – in our inner cities and small towns; from college graduates, to seniors getting ready to retire – that could benefit millions of Americans if they’re given the chance to grow As President, I will launch a new Social Investment Fund Network. It’s time to get the grass roots, the foundations, the faith-based organizations, the private sector and the government at the table so that we can learn from our own success stories. We’ll invest in ideas that work; leverage private sector dollars to encourage innovation; and expand successful programs to scale.

Keep in mind that for Obama, ACORN is the type of nonprofit he knows and believes in. Scary.