Thursday, July 23, 2009

Tuesday, July 07, 2009

 

On June 19,2009 “The White House fired Gerald Walpin. The firing apparently stemmed from Walpin’s investigation of a non-profit group, St. HOPE Academy, run by Kevin Johnson, the former NBA star who is now mayor of Sacramento, California (and a big Obama supporter).
Walpin found that Johnson, a former all-star point guard for the Phoenix Suns, had used AmeriCorps grants to pay volunteers to engage in school-board political activities, run personal errands for Johnson and even wash his car,” the AP reports. In April, the U.S. attorney declined to file any criminal charges in the matter and criticized Walpin’s investigation. But at the same time Johnson and St. HOPE agreed to repay about half of the $850,000 it had received from AmeriCorps.

Bottom line: The AmeriCorps IG accused a prominent Obama supporter of misusing AmeriCorps grant money.The prominent Obama supporter had to pay back more than $400,000 of that grant money. Obama fired AmeriCorps IG, Walpin.
The Congress passed a law to protect Independent Prosecutors from just this kind of underhanded firing. The IIRC bill required that the President would have to notify Congress in writing 30 days prior to any action being taken. Given the reports that Teh One’s staff reportedly tried to force him to resign within the hour or be fired, it appears that they do not pay attention to their own legislation, or, conveniently ignore it.Either way Obama and his henchmen violated the law by firing Inspector General Walpin!

This unlawful act by the Obama administration was a violation of a law passed by the Congress, and as such it should be an affront to all members of Congress regardless of party affiliation. But as predicted it is ignored by the Democrats and some Republicans who support Obama.
As a result, key Republicans in both the House and the Senate are accusing the White House of giving “incomplete and misleading” information to investigators probing the president’s abrupt firing of AmeriCorps Inspector General Gerald Walpin. In return, the White House is hinting that documents concerning its actions in the Walpin affair may be protected by executive privilege.

Both developments are part of an escalating conflict between GOP lawmakers and the Obama administration. Republicans are deeply skeptical of the White House explanation for the June 10 firing of Walpin, a tough investigator who had been probing misuse of AmeriCorps money by Sacramento, Calif., mayor — and prominent Obama supporter — Kevin Johnson. And the administration seems determined to conceal its dealings with AmeriCorps and the organization that oversees it, the Corporation for National and Community Service.

Walpin was dismissed without warning on June 10, when he received a call from Norman Eisen, the special counsel to the president for ethics and government reform. Eisen told Walpin he had one hour either to resign or be fired — an apparent violation of a law giving special job protections to inspectors general. When Walpin refused to quit, he was terminated.

After lawmakers demanded an explanation, the White House said Walpin had been “confused, disoriented [and] unable to answer questions” at a May 20 meeting with the board of the Corporation for National and Community Service. The Johnson case was discussed at that meeting, with Walpin harshly criticizing board members for their support of a decision to let Johnson off easy.

There’s no question that members of the board, both Democrat and Republican, were unhappy with Walpin’s criticism of them. They agreed that Alan Solomont, the Democratic fundraiser appointed by President Barack Obama as chairman of the board, should tell the White House what had happened.

But now, at least three board members have told congressional investigators they did not specifically recommend that the administration fire Walpin. Instead, they simply wanted the chairman to express their concerns.

The White House claims it investigated the matter; Eisen told House and Senate aides that officials did an “extensive review” of complaints about Walpin’s performance before deciding to fire him. But there are serious doubts as to whether the White House did, in fact, conduct a serious investigation before getting rid of Walpin.

The three board members have told Congress that the White House did not contact them during the review. (One was told about Walpin’s firing at about the time it happened, and the other two were contacted days later.) No one from the White House contacted Walpin himself, or his top assistant, as part of the review.

Republican aides want to step up the pressure on the firing, because, as one senior committee aide put it: "What's at stake isn't just one man's job: it's how $6 billion in taxpayer money is going to be used by this Administration on an agency with no independent oversight." The six billion was given to the CNCS this year by Obama. This is tax payers money being used to promote Obama special interest plans!

The aide is referring to the Corporation for National and Community Service's primary entity, AmeriCorps, set up in the 1990s by the Clinton Administration to increase public service among young people -- mostly college grads and young professionals -- largely via grant-making to a network of state and local community nonprofit groups.

"Just how AmeriCorps is going to be used by the Obama Administration -- and what steps the administration has taken to ensure that it can do with AmeriCorps what it wants -- is at the heart of our concern," says the GOP House staffer. "We think that the removal of Walpin was part of that agenda." Source:American Spectator

The resources allocated to CNCS amount to more that $6 billion in funds, and those plans include turning AmeriCorps into a supersized, taxpayer-funded ACORN-like organization, focused on the Obama Administration's policy agenda, including health care reform, targeted stimulus spending, and possible work on the upcoming U.S. census in 2010.
Meanwhile, a White House source says the White House is trying to find out if dispersal of parts of the $6 billion budget for CNCS can be sped up under a Presidential request that the funds be considered part of the economic stimulus program. Stimulus?? Sounds more like war chest funds for Obama!!

In the past, AmeriCorps volunteers lobbied and organized groups against the "three strikes" rule in California, and had plans in place to identify groups to support a second attempt at health care reform after Hillarycare went down in flames. Some AmeriCorps resources have gone to assist ACORN projects around the country, including anti-Republican demonstrations in state capitals and in Washington, D.C.
And you can be sure this group will have an affect on the 2010 and 2012 elections to the detriment of fair and honest election results.
And if you doubt my words. I have enclosed a quote from the head of one of ACORNs affiliates that describes the pupose of ACORN and it's "sinister" organizations very well.
"SOCIAL POLICY asks what is to be done to secure basic structural changes in American society. Its pages will provide a meeting ground — and battleground — where ideas, tactics and strategies for radical reconstruction of American institutions can be expressed and exchanged, tested and debated, expanded and deepened.”

AS A LIFE LONG CONSERVATIVE I WELCOMED THE NEWS THAT THE PONZI SCHEME OF MADOFF PRODUCED SOME FORTUITOUS EVENTS FOR CONSERVATIVES LIKE ME.
The sudden collapse of the Madoff hedge fund, resulted in the revelation that Madoff swindled many clients out of up to $50 billion.Madoff's hedge fund collapse has hurt -- and in some cases fatally wounded -- scores of nonprofit groups and charitable foundations. And it is notable that many of his victims are Leftist organizations.

Madoff is(or was) a heavy donor to Democratic candidates, but his fund also did irreparable harm to the liberal and far-left causes he loves.

At least two major left-leaning charities are closing their doors as a direct consequence of the record-breaking fraud.

The giant Picower Foundation had the misfortune to choose Madoff to manage its more than $1 billion in assets.

The charity has given away more than $189 million since 1999.

A sizable chunk of its funding has gone to abortion groups, including NARAL ($3.2 million), Center for Reproductive Rights ($2.5 million), Planned Parenthood ($2.4 million), and Center for Reproductive Law and Policy ($625,000).

Picower Foundation gave $2.9 million to the Southern Poverty Law Center, a public interest law firm that uses politically skewed definitions of racism to indoctrinate children while smearing conservatives who question racial preference programs. The foundation also gave $200,000 to Project Vote (a.k.a. Voting for America), an affiliate of the radical Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN).

Another affected charity is the JEHT Foundation, which said it expects to close down in January because its benefactors invested in Madoff’s hedge fund. JEHT, an acronym that stands for Justice, Equality, Human dignity and Tolerance, is a reliable funder of far left causes and has given away more than $72 million in grants since heiress and Democratic donor Jeanne Levy-Church founded it in 2000.

JEHT gave $1.7 million to the ACLU and its foundation, along with $839,500 to the ultra-leftist public interest law firm, the Center for Constitutional Rights. CCR helped to convince the Supreme Court in Boumediene v. Bush (2008) to confer habeas corpus rights for the first time in history on alien enemies detained abroad by the U.S. military in wartime. The decision gives terrorists a green light to manipulate our justice system and flout the well-established laws of civilized warfare.

The Madoff scandal has also ended Madoff’s personal philanthropic efforts.

Madoff Family Foundation, which reported assets of $19.1 million at the end of 2007, has given $110,000 to the anti-poverty Robin Hood Foundation since 2003.

Newsman Tom Brokaw and Children's Defense Fund president and Hillary Clinton pal Marian Wright Edelman sit on the Robin Hood board. The liberal foundation has given ACORN $821,000. George Soros's Soros Fund Charitable Foundation gave the Robin Hood Foundation a $9.8 million community development grant in 2000.

JEHT gave $250,000 to the American Institute for Social Justice, an ACORN affiliate. The Saul Alinsky-inspired Institute trains community organizers and in recent years has served as a shadowy financial clearinghouse, directing $9 million to ACORN and two of its other affiliates. Source:The American Spectator

It is also pertinent to note that JEHT gave $55,000 to Nan Aron’s Alliance for Justice, a group that systematically distorts conservative judges' records in an effort to block their elevation to higher courts. The Alliance helped to torpedo the Supreme Court nomination of Robert Bork in 1987 and nearly succeeded in "borking" Clarence Thomas in 1991. More recently, the group fought President Bush's nominations of Charles Pickering and Priscilla Owen to federal courts. You see my son there is a God after all!

Government’s view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it.” —Ronald Reagan

In order to understand how Barack Obama and ACORN are among those who are responsible for the mortgage meltdown. You first have to understand what ACORN is and how Barack Obama was affiliated with them...and make no mistake; Barack Obama was most definitely affiliated with ACORN.

The Roots of ACORN
From a comprehensive and thoroughly researched piece by Stanley Kurtz in the National Review titled, Inside Obama’s ACORN, we come to understand that ACORN has its roots in the anti-capitalist tenets of the 1960s radical left group the National Welfare Rights Organization. This groups’ goal was to force a radical reconstruction of what they described as “America’s unjust capitalist economy” by forcing the elimination of eligibility restrictions for those trying to attain inclusion on the welfare roles, thus creating an overloaded system, a crisis, so as to affect that reconstruction.source:wikapedia

Over the years, ACORN "morphed" its mission into one that champions a diverse set of objectives, all with an overriding goal based on the tenets of anti-capitalism and the destruction of the US Capitalist system. The group targets privately owned companies in their pursuit of cleverly public mandated "living wage" laws that have literally driven companies from some areas where jobs are badly needed.

They continue their campaign to eliminate welfare role eligibility restrictions(ie. illegal aliens) as they push to roll back welfare reform. And, in an area directly related to our subject, they actively employ coercive tactics to manipulate financial institutions into abandoning best business practice by affording low-interest loans to unqualified/minority borrowers.

In 1977, the Community Reinvestment Act was signed into law by President Jimmy Carter. This law requires financial institutions to offer credit, including home ownership opportunities, to under-served populations. Simply put, the Community Reinvestment Act forced financial institutions to offer credit – mortgages – to unqualified borrowers. To add teeth to this law, provisions were included to punish financial institutions that did not embrace the horrific business practice of lending money to those unable to pay it back. source:Congressional record

Because of the Community Reinvestment Act, any financial institution that wants to expand or merge,and any financial institution that has earned the right to grow because of its utilization of good business practices,has to prove it has complied with the Community Reinvestment Act. Otherwise the growth move can be blocked through regulation set-up to enforce the law.

ACORN, under the guise of affecting “affordable housing for the poor” routinely employs intimidation tactics (both physical and verbal), public charges of racism and threatens to use the Community Reinvestment Act to block business expansion. These actions have enabled ACORN to extract hundreds of millions of dollars in loans and “organizational contributions” (read: extortion) from America’s financial institutions.

The actions of ACORN by their intimidation of financial institutions that make up the mortgage banking industry, serve as the chief catalyst for the mortgage crisis and the financial meltdown we are experiencing today. By coercing the mortgage banking industry into lending to those who were unqualified to borrow.

ACORN instigated the collapse of the housing market and, as a result, is directly responsible for qualified borrowers(you and I) being nearly unable to secure legitimate lines of credit today.

But how does this relate to Barack Obama?

Barack Obama’s Connection to ACORNWhen a young Barack Obama was first starting in his career as a “community organizer,” he caught the eye of Madeleine Talbot, the Chicago chapter head of ACORN. Talbot was so impressed with Obama’s organizational skills in his effort to attain asbestos abatement at a low-income housing project that she invited Obama to help train her own staff in the art of community organizing.

In an article by Toni Foulkes, a Chicago ACORN leader and a member of ACORN’s National Association Board, published in Social Policy titled, Case Study: Chicago. The Barack Obama Campaign shows that Barack Obama is a key figure in ACORN’s yearly leadership-training seminars. Foulkes also exposes the fact that the much-touted Project Vote campaign which Obama takes credit for organizing was, in fact, in direct partnership with ACORN!

Barack Obama was retained to represent ACORN in a legal action regarding an Illinois law addressing what has come to be known as “motor-voter” voter registration. He was intentionally and specifically sought because of his days working with Madeleine Talbot.

After Obama officially left ACORN and began to craft his political career he tapped into his time at ACORN to field his volunteer staff. Having trained many of the ACORN leaders in Chicago there was a cadre of enthusiasm for his candidacies throughout the organization. This includes his 1996 congressional campaign, his 2000 State Senate campaign, his 2004 US Senate campaign and today’s 2008 presidential campaign. It should be noted here that Obama sought and received endorsements from ACORN’s political arm for his political contests.

A minimal effort into researching then Illinois State Senator Barack Obama’s pet projects reveals that on several occasions he introduced legislation complimentary to ACORN’s goals including legislation addressing the municipal living wage and the financial sector. And when Obama sat on the boards of the Woods Foundation and the Joyce Foundation he was afforded the wherewithal to direct grants to ACORN, which he did.Source: Chicago Tribune

HotAir.com’s Ed Morrissey, points out that, “It’s important not to get too carried away with the ACORN connection in the collapse. The real trigger came when Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac began buying up all of these loans and converting them into securities.”

"But a gun doesn’t shoot without bullets and ACORN’s manipulation of the mortgage banking community in securing low-interest loans for unqualified borrowers manufactured the “bullets” that were shot by the gun owned by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac." With the assistance of Congressman Bernie Franks and Senator Dodd, the two responsible for oversight of the "Freddies"!

The mortgage crisis and the subsequent financial meltdown that has caused hundred-point slides in the stock market in recent days, was started with training people. Community activists and their coordinators were taught how to coerce financial organizations into employing bad business practices by providing loans to people who could never, ever pay them back.

Barack Obama trained Madeleine Talbot’s budding ACORN staff how to organize people to action. He returned yearly to provide leadership-training seminars. And after ACORN employed the practice of coercing financial institution into providing low-interest loans to unqualified recipients Obama served as their legal counsel.

Of course, like every other legitimate charge brought against the Democrat "messia", this will be denied, but the Internet has all the facts for those who are willing to research it as I did.

Despite these facts I must say I believe we have a majority of voters who have welcomed the government "cradle to grave" concept, and this smooth talking con-man will occupy the Oval Office!