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A Housing and Urban Development Department lawyer asked the Justice Department whether the new law meant that pre-existing contracts with Acorn should be broken. And in a memorandum signed Oct. 23 and posted online this week, Mr. Barron said the government should continue to make payments to Acorn as required by such contracts. The new law “should not be read as directing or authorizing HUD to breach a pre-existing binding contractual obligation to make payments to Acorn or its affiliates, subsidiaries or allied organizations where doing so would give rise to contractual liability,” Mr. Barron wrote. The deputy director of...

"DOORKNOCKING BASICS Some of the roles of an organizer are: • To help people steer their anger toward the system into collective action • To recruit new members for the organization’s greater political power • To give people a sense of their own power • To listen to their stories • To raise the expectations of what people should feel they should get • To paint a clear picture of who the enemy is • To organize to hold corporations and the government accountable to low & moderate income people • To bring in extra revenue to the organization •...

Just more evidence that your common criminal is just plain retarded: On October 1st, 2009 California Attorney General Jerry Brown announced that an investigation had been opened into ACORN’s activities in California, resulting from undercover videos showing employees seemingly offering to assist the undercover film makers with human smuggling, child prostitution and even tax advice to boot. Although ACORN has denied any wrongdoing, some of the employees involved were terminated, and ACORN has publicly stated that they would fully cooperate with any investigations that followed. Interestingly, the local head ACORN organizer in California, David Lagstein was caught on tape earlier...

Here is video of Sean Hannity talking with Andrew Breitbart, James O'Keefe, and Hannah Giles about the latest ACORN video they have revealed. When asked by Hannity if he has more tapes, Breitbart answered "not only are there more tapes, it's not just ACORN." He then gave a "message" to Attorney General Holder "I want you to know we have more tapes, it's not just ACORN, and we're going to hold out until the next election cycle" unless Holder does "a clean investigation" of ACORN. (Video)

The Senate voted 59 to 39 to confirm Judge David F. Hamilton to the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. Judge Hamilton, who sits on the Federal District Court in Indiana, was President Obama’s first judicial nominee. Republicans opposed the nomination, announced March 19, because of decisions Judge Hamilton made relating to abortion and prayers in the Indiana Legislature. Senator Richard G. Lugar of Indiana was the only Republican to vote for his confirmation.

Just when we thought it was all over, the ACORN Pimp/Hooker Scandal rises again. Our heroes, Hannah Giles and James O' Keefe the fake pimp and hooker were in Philadelphia meeting with the folks at ACORN. Next Stop, Sunny Los Angeles. The first tape released from the ACORN of sunny LA was of Felix Harris Mr. Harris didn’t care about that the two were involved with prostitution in regards to a housing loan, but when the O'Keefe/Giles team started talking about underage girls, he said that ACORN did not get involved with things like that. Felix was the only person...

Those undercover tapes of ACORN (Association of Community Organizers for Reform Now) keep popping up, like these at the Big Government web site.. After a pair of undercover filmmakers impersonated a pimp and prostitute at ACORN offices, the Attorney General's office in California led by former Governor Jerry Brown has promised an investigation not into ACORN, but into the filmmakers. On October 15th, local ACORN spokesman David Lagstein was the special guest of the East County Democrat Club in El Cajon, CA. Lagstein is ACORN’s chief organizer in the San Diego area. The meeting was held at Coco’s Restaurant, a...

New Jersey Governor Jon Corzine is locked in the political fight of his life. With just hours left before voting, polls show a neck-and-neck race between Corzine and GOP candidate Chris Christie, with Independent candidate Chris Daggett pulling significant support. Obama and VP Biden are making last ditch pitches for the embattled governor. But evidence is building that Corzine’s campaign may see its only salvation is in rigging the election. The first sign is a straight-up dirty trick. Daggett’s run for office is certainly convenient for Corzine, as he will help split any anti-Corzine vote. And, as a Corzine political...

Fearful that the party had almost no chance of winning the Nov. 3 New York special election after Republican nominee Dede Scozzafava abruptly announced Saturday that she was dropping out, high-ranking national Democrats immediately began working to secure her endorsement of Democrat Bill Owens, POLITICO has learned. On Sunday afternoon, their vigorous efforts paid off as Scozzafava bucked her own party and issued a statement supporting Owens over Conservative Party nominee Doug Hoffman, a coup for Democrats who recognized that their best remaining chance of winning the Republican-leaning seat on Tuesday was to swing disaffected Scozzafava supporters their way. By...

When both houses of Congress voted to defund ACORN several weeks ago, what they actually did was bar lawmakers and federal agencies from giving any money to the community organizing group for the duration of the temporary budget agreement, or continuing resolution, that was in effect at the time. Continuing resolutions are used to extend federal spending, and keep the government running, when Congress can't agree on appropriations bills for the fiscal year. When the congressional defunding of ACORN went into effect on October 1, there was a continuing resolution in place that would last until October 31 -- this...

Just weeks after overwhelming votes in the House and Senate to protect tax payers by barring federal funding to ACORN, Democrats have found a way to throw a life-line to their de facto campaign organization. Democrats on the House Committee on Financial Services adopted an amendment by Maxine Waters that will allow ACORN and other activists groups to share a regulatory role over our financial institutions.

The federal government has listed an ACORN affiliate in its catalog of approved charities – allowing federal employees to set up payroll deductions and donate a portion of paychecks directly to the group. The ACORN Institute, an affiliate of the national umbrella organization of ACORN, is featured in the Office of Personnel Management's 2009 CFC list of participating national and international organizations. The government's annual workplace charity campaign allows federal employees to contribute to qualified charities with cash, checks or payroll deductions. According to a Washington Post report, ACORN transferred millions of dollars in charitable contributions meant for the poor...

Besides giving advice on avoiding taxes and fraudulently getting home loans for brothels featuring 13-year-old Salvadoran girls illegally smuggled into this country, ACORN officials could soon be helping regulate your local bank, thanks to an amendment adopted by Rep. Barney Frank's House Financial Services Committee. The amendment was sponsored by Rep. Maxine Waters, D-CA, and provided that five slots on the oversight board for the proposed new Consumer Financial Protection Agency be reserved for representatives of "consumer protection, fair lending and civil rights, representatives of depository institutions that primarily serve underserved communities, or representatives of communities that have been significantly...

Several Louisiana ACORN leaders, including the recently ousted state leader, are expected to announce today that they have started a new organization under the same name after national authorities of the community action network voted to take over the chapter. A notice of a news conference scheduled for 3 p.m. in Light City Church, 6117 St. Claude Ave., says the event will include "Louisiana ACORN Executive Director Beth Butler, " who was fired from that post Oct. 12 by national ACORN CEO Bertha Lewis. The document states that Butler will be joined by several Louisiana ACORN officers, board members and...

Is ACORN a toxic organization? Illinois Congressmen Mark Kirk and Peter Roskam, along with North Carolina Congressman Patrick McHenry, made the case today at a press conference in Chicago. Below is a press release handed out by the office of Congressman Mark Kirk (R-IL). Research reveals web of financial ties between ACORN and SEIU; SEIU Local 880 formed by ACORN, rents office from ACORN front group while another finances ACORN “election efforts”; U.S. Census recently cut ties with ACORN but partnership with SEIU remains CHICAGO – Illinois Congressmen Mark Kirk and Peter Roskam today urged the U.S. Census Bureau to...

Chris Edwards, the former Las Vegas Director for ACORN has "flipped" for the Nevada AG's prosecution of ACORN in voter fraud case. Matthew Vadum of Capital Resource Center claims the Nevada AG has possession of ACORN Resource Manual which includes a registration incentive scheme called, "21" that paid cash bonuses.FOX News video of interview here and at link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zFaIeMogWa4

It's something any bank would demand to know before handing out a loan: Where's the money going? But after receiving billions in aid from U.S. taxpayers, the nation's largest banks say they can't track exactly how they're spending the money or they simply refuse to discuss it. "We've lent some of it. We've not lent some of it. We've not given any accounting of, 'Here's how we're doing it,'" said Thomas Kelly, a spokesman for JPMorgan Chase, which received $25 billion in emergency bailout money. "We have not disclosed that to the public. We're declining to."

Guillermo Loaiza, a loan officer for a unit of J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. in Phoenix, has resigned from the board of Acorn Housing, a spokesman for J.P. Morgan said. Acorn Housing is an affiliate of the community-organizing group Acorn, the full name of which is the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now. Both Acorn and Acorn Housing have been under fire since the recent release of secretly recorded videos that depicted Acorn employees offering advice on evading taxes, setting up brothels and smuggling illegal immigrants. J.P. Morgan has said it doesn't have a regular working relationship with Acorn...

Andrew Breitbart's Big Hollywood has revealed new audio of the August 10 National Endowment for the Art, White House, and United We Serve conference call. However, The Obama administration apparently met with 60 artists and creative organizers as early as May 12 according to an online document (Download)by the Pratt Center for Community Development, State Voices, Arlene Goldbard, and the Nathan Cummings Foundation. Other artists(link1 link 2)have corroborated this meeting happened.

*NEA conference call full audio and transcript here** Should the National Endowment for the Arts encourage artists to create art on issues being vehemently debated nationally? That is the question that I set out to discuss a little over three weeks ago when I wrote an article on Big Hollywood entitled The National Endowment for the Art of Persuasion?” The question still requires debate but the facts do not. The NEA and the White House did encourage a handpicked, pro-Obama arts group to address politically controversial issues under contentious national debate. That fact is irrefutable. But some have claimed that...