Barack Hussein Obama the “community organizer” has never traveled far from the local tree he fell from.
While he is a skilled candidate, Barack Obama’s ability to surprise, stun and sweep over the vaunted Clinton Machine to capture the Democratic nomination was rooted in his background as a community organizer. He’s now turning those skills to the general election, writes John Fund at the Political Diary.
Should Mr. Obama be elected, he would become not just the head of the Democratic Party but also the inspiration for a large number of liberal groups. Some of them would no doubt lobby him to hand out taxpayer grants and contracts for their nonpolitical “community” efforts.
Mr. Obama has extensive connections with the granddaddy of activist groups, Acorn 
(Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now), which has gotten millions in government grants for its low-income housing programs. In 1992, Acorn hired Mr. Obama to run a voter registration effort. He later became a trainer for the group, as well as its lawyer in election law cases.
Acorn’s political arm has endorsed Mr. Obama while its “voter education” arm has pledged to spend $35 million to register people this fall — despite a history of vote fraud scandals that have led to guilty pleas by many Acorn employees.
The housing bill now before Congress would set up a slush fund for community organizations such as Acorn. But Acorn has gone quiet in its lobbying for the bill this week with the news that one of its employees — the brother of Acorn founder Wade Rathke — had stolen nearly $1 million from the group. Mr. Rathke decided not to alert law enforcement or the organization’s board, and kept his brother employed at Acorn until last month.
“Is this the kind of group we want getting taxpayer money?” asks Rep. Ed Royce (R-CA)
“What if Barack Obama’s most important radical connection has been hiding in plain sight all along?” asks Stanley Kurtz at National Review.
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.
Sol Stern at City Journal writes:
Community organizing among the urban poor has been an honorable American tradition since Jane Addams’s famous Hull House dramatically uplifted the late-nineteenth-century Chicago slums, but ACORN and Addams are on different planets philosophically.
Hull House and its many successors emphasized self-empowerment: the poor, they thought, could take control of their lives and communities through education, hard work, and personal responsibility. Not ACORN. It promotes a 1960s-bred agenda of anti-capitalism, central planning, victimology, and government handouts to the poor. As a result, not only does it harm the poor it claims to serve; it is also a serious threat to the urban future. (LC Emphasis)
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,” whose prose Orwell would have derided as pure commissar-speak. “We will continue our fight . . . until we have shared the wealth, until we have won our freedom. (LC Emphasis)
The theory, explains Stern, was that an impossibly overburdened welfare system would force “a radical reconstruction of America’s unjust capitalist economy.” Instead of a socialist utopia, however, we got the culture of dependency and family breakdown that ate away at America’s inner cities — until welfare reform began to turn the tide.
In August 2006 Steven Malanga wrote in the Wall Street Journal:
The movement is not always what it appears to be. Though Acorn touts living-wage laws as a way to lift the working poor into the middle class, the vast body of academic work on wage laws shows that they end up hurting the poor by forcing businesses to eliminate some low-wage jobs. Acorn’s own leadership understands this principle perfectly. When California regulators sued Acorn for not paying its own workers the minimum wage, Acorn argued that this would endanger its mission—because it would have to hire fewer workers. (LC Emphasis)
According to ACORN, Obama trained its Chicago members in leadership seminars, in turn, ACORN volunteers worked on his campaigns. Obama also sat on the boards of the Woods Fund and Joyce Foundation, both of which poured money into ACORN’s coffers.
ACORN head Maude Hurd gushes that Obama is the candidate who “best understands and can affect change on the issues ACORN cares about” — like ensuring their massive pipeline to your hard-earned money.
St. Louis County Election officials claim hundreds of fraudulent voter address changes have been turned in by ACORN, a group that’s been criticized for its voter sign-up work in Missouri. Election Board employees estimate hundreds of fraudulent address changes were submitted.
The address changes included forged signatures and are among questionable or fraudulent voter registration cards submitted to the county within the past couple of months.
County officials told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch that most of the suspicious registrations and address changes were submitted by the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN). Similar fraudulent voter registration cards have turned up this month in St. Louis city and this week in Kansas City, as well as other states, including Ohio.
The cases are often similar. Voter registration cards were forged for a dead person, had false signatures and change of addresses or incorrect and missing personal information, Goeke said.
Eight workers for a get-out-the-vote effort in St. Louis city and county have pleaded guilty to federal election fraud for submitting false registration cards for the 2006 election, authorities said today.
The workers were employed by the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), gathering voter registrations. U.S. Attorney Catherine Hanaway said they submitted cards with false addresses and names, and forged signatures.
D.C. Dateline writes:
But back in Chicago, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) is more important than Iraq or Washington. ACORN and its associated Midwest Academy, both founded in the 1970s, continue to train and mobilize activists throughout the country, often using them to manipulate public opinion through “direct action.” It’s sometimes a code for illegal activities.
Prior to law school, Barack Obama worked as an organizer for their affiliates in New York and Chicago. He always has been an ACORN person — meeting and working with them to advance their causes. Through his membership on the board of the Woods Fund for Chicago and his friendship with Teresa Heinz Kerry, Obama has helped ensure that they remain funded well.
Since he graduated from law school, Obama’s work with ACORN and the Midwest Academy has ranged from training and fundraising, to legal representation and promoting their work.
Barack Hussein Obama’s “Hidden ACORN” is slowly getting exposed. Indeed!
See Our Update Obama’s Rotten ACORN
See This Updated Story by Stanley Kurtz at National Review Online: Inside Obama’s Acorn.
Powered by A Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy
Copyright © 2010 Liberally Conservative™ and Liberally Conservatve.com™ are Registered Trademarks - All Rights Reserved
July 23rd, 2008 at 11:32 pm
THANK YOU FOR BRINGING OUT THESE FACTS!
July 27th, 2008 at 2:33 pm
[...] also: Obama’s Hidden ACORN Law & Justice Politics U.S. Constitution [...]
August 10th, 2008 at 9:49 pm
Why is the Media not telling this story? In a not too distant past, this story would be a
scandal, as well it should be.
I am from Washington State and we know, only too well, how this questionable group operates.
And to think it gets its funding from HUD and other gov’t entities. My understanding from M. Mal
kin is that over 40% of our tax dollars go to this group.
This is an Obamanation.
September 5th, 2008 at 5:29 pm
Just really started making the Obama/ACORN connection, even though it should have been obvious to me with my personal experience with ACORN. I edit a major power industry pub and before that spent many years in the electric utility industry. ACORN always showed up to protest any coal or nuclear power plant at hearings saying power plants caused higher rates and oppressed the poor with those rates and because the poor were more affected by pollution and mining and all that because they were so close to the “dirty power plants” and the dirty mining areas and so forth. Then, about a year ago, they sent a couple of goofy kids to my door preaching a similar message, which apparently coincided with the local utility’s desire to build more coal plants. So I simply told these kids – useful fools I believe is what Marx and Lenin called people like them – that ACORN had spent many years and much money making sure power prices were high for those who can least afford it, namely the poor, by opposing coal and nuclear plants that could have and would have be operating today had it not been for the opposition that came from people like them. I also commended them for their honesty in working for an organizatin named after a nut, which was what they were. I also asked them if they could read English, since the sign on my door stated “No Soliciting” and ordered them off my property.
September 17th, 2008 at 10:53 am
Speaking as a mother who delivered a baby in the middle on 911, your message is insulting. You have no idea what having a baby while loosing one is, Bush is unquestionably the worst President the United States has every had and everyone know its. Bush was “begged” by the United Nations to not go to war and set an example, if you do the world will support you and what did he do. Where is the man who bombed our city and why weren’t the 4,000 people who died looking in the same country he lives in? I sent my brother twice to Iraq so don’t tell me my freedom was the cause. I don’t care if Obama wins or not, I only know that the Republican Party did not produce a strong presidential candidate to beat anyone and now we are left with someone who has a good heart but no swing. The United States is judging Obama based on the outside of his skin and other countries with the same or similar skin color are watching. If Obama looses your party better have a better plan than the last 8 years, and putting it all on Sarah will not solve years of incompetence.
September 17th, 2008 at 2:08 pm
I have no idea? Wrong Eleanor, you know nothing about me personally and very little politically.
You make accusations about judging Obama by skin color so you’re calling me a racist, WRONG! We have a right to examine a candidate for President and using the race card here won’t help your cause.
Bush is not the worst President, one of few with the guts to make decisions, tough decisions without the UN and their feckless cronies. Oil for Food? Hmmmmmmmmmmmm….
Who really cares about bin Laden? We have killed al-Qaeda leadership and have Special Ops and drones working the Aghan/Pakistan border. Do you have a plan to go into Pakistan without permission from them to hunt bin-Laden?
Your brother went to Iraq, we are proud and thankful. My son is headed to Afghanistan. Watch the video in this sites header, everyone doesn’t feel like you and your son, do they?
Quit worrying about “other countries” and what they think, they don’t vote in America and really would like to see us fail. We are not France, we are America.
The last eight years was not so bad, are you on welfare? How is your position? Are you comfortable?
You don’t think we freed a nation from brutality in Saddam Hussein? How sad, for that’s exactly what we did. A Democracy is being built in the Middle East because George W. Bush had the guts to make the tough decisions and didn’t look back but forward until he found a winning combination in General Petraeus and the surge.
Mr. Bush bucked the Iraq Study Group, Democrats and Republicans and the Joint Chiefs who were all wrong. Mr. Bush found the winning answer so give the man credit. Indeed!
September 23rd, 2008 at 10:19 am
[...] CAC translated Mr. Ayers’s radicalism into practice. Instead of funding schools directly, it required schools to affiliate with “external partners,” which actually got the money. Proposals from groups focused on math/science achievement were turned down. Instead CAC disbursed money through various far-left community organizers, such as the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (or ACORN). [...]
September 27th, 2008 at 6:03 am
[...] Hussein Obama is all for this power and money grab to support ACORN, who he worked for as part of his community organizing. The White House and House Republicans are insisting that [...]
September 29th, 2008 at 3:30 pm
I wish to make a comment about ACORN:
I believe that this organization is frightening. To begin with, ANY organization with a “hidden” agenda, speaks volumes. Why do blacks feel that they should receive housing, etc. without working like every other American?? Could it be that one of the reasons that we are in a finanical mess in our government is the free hand-outs that “minority” groups demand? “If a man doesn’t work, he doesn’t deserve to eat”! This discludes people who are disabled, ill, etc. I am sick and tired of working hard (we are hard-working farmers!), to support lazy people who expect hand-outs and feel that everyone OWES them. We have been very poor, but we sucked it up, I canned all my food, sewed all my clothes for my children, and cut costs where we could. I didn’t have a phone or a car much less furniture or free hand outs. We worked our way out and build a very success business. We taught our children to work hard and build good lifes. They don’t live off of others either, but work hard and build their own lives.
Why do these organizations feel everyone owes them something? Get off your lazy ass and go to work!
September 29th, 2008 at 4:55 pm
Thank you and well said.
Democrats primarily did ccoked up this current mess and don’t want credit for it.
ACORN should be shut down and the nerve of Paulson to even let 20% of the bailout money (see current posts above) into the current bill. That is pure fraud and we have zero respect for Mr. Paulson.
Barney Frank, Maxine Waters, Nancy Pelosi and a host of other in the House in particular own the Freddie/Fannie mess, lock, stock and barrel. They should face jail time not continued jobs in government. People better wake up to the fact that Obama is a pure liar and any changed positions are lies to get himself elected. SOCIALISM is on the way. VOTE AGAINST DEMOCRATS AND DON’T ELECT OBAMA!!!
September 29th, 2008 at 7:39 pm
[...] Hussein Obama has spent years training and funding the organizers who do it. “The seeds of today’s financial meltdown lie in the Community [...]
October 8th, 2008 at 2:49 am
Why oh why doesn’t the Obama – Acorn connection hit the public. Obama was involved directly in causing the current economic mess —and noone shouit it from the rooftops. PLEASE REPUBLICANS- LET THE TRUTH BE TOLD–AND NOW BEFORE IT’S TOO LATE.
October 8th, 2008 at 10:07 am
I am unaware of what Obama had to do with ACORN. How large of a role was he playing?
October 8th, 2008 at 10:17 am
Obama worked and led the Chicago “ACORN” office.
When Obama became CEO of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge (CAC) he funneled millions of dollars to ACORN.
October 8th, 2008 at 3:28 pm
And with those millions of dollars what were they being used for, and what kind of scandal was there when ACORN was plummeting?
October 8th, 2008 at 4:00 pm
One significant use of the money was to pay people to get signatures on a quota basis.
Pay for signature and filled out voter registration forms.
Too hot outside? Too cold outside? Just go into your local library and copy names and make up fake signatures and turned in your forms and get paid. Oops! Too many of these forms resemble eachother with the same handwriting.
On further review we have dead people, none people and children listed.
October 8th, 2008 at 4:15 pm
So are you saying that Obama was the sole cause for ACORN failing?
October 8th, 2008 at 5:05 pm
I never said that ACORN failed or that Obama was a cause of any alleged failure.
ACORN has been successful of breaking the law but has been caught at times. Voter registration is only one function of ACORN, they are key in intimidating banks into providing loans to people who can’t afford them.
The crux of this post was ACORN has a very liberal agenda, they use illegal tactics, intimdidation and Obama headed up one of their major offices.
But I think you know that already. Indeed!
October 8th, 2008 at 5:12 pm
Thank you. I was trying to research this because our class is having discussions over the elections for my government class. Not one person has any knowledge on this subject, but I believe that you have provided my with some valuable information.
October 9th, 2008 at 11:29 am
[...] recipient of the Woods Fund largesse was the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), an organization infamous for its left wing [...]
October 12th, 2008 at 10:28 am
[...] the organization Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now. This story has been on this site since mid-July, it’s not a sudden [...]
October 18th, 2008 at 7:11 pm
Just one comment : Obama is the most Liberal American
gangster we can ever find in the American government.
August 27th, 2009 at 6:17 pm
This is scary as hell! Americans need to unite and pay attention to exactly what this government is up to! This government calls Americans that speak out against what’s taking place in this country as “HOME GROWN TERROISTS! Apparently these idiots in DC don’t like people saying anything against this country going to hell! This President and people in DC have stopped working for the people, all they care about is THEMSELVES! If we don’t start speaking up we’ll get exactly what we deserve….that being controlled by this government! There is no way in hell I’m going down without speaking up!