Issa Report finds ACORN Fraud, SEIU Connections (“Follow the Money: ACORN, SEIU and .. Allies”)

Republicans on the House Oversight & Government Reform Committee have released a new report leveling fresh allegations and evidence of corruption against the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, or ACORN.

Entitled “Follow the Money: ACORN, SEIU and their Political Allies,” the report presents information gleaned from committee investigations into hundreds of bank accounts, shell organizations incorporated under myriad sections of the internal revenue code, even an ACORN-directed accounting firm, Citizens Consulting Inc., charged with obscuring the trail and use of funding streams pouring into ACORN from taxpayers and charitable contributions alike.

1. ACORN and SEIU entered into illegal agreements that constitute a criminal conspiracy.

Investigators found that ACORN CEO Bertha Lewis, Executive Director Steven Kest, and Political Operations Director Zach Polett have actual or apparent authority over ACORN’s activities and then identified a pattern of alleged criminal acts.

2. ACORN and SEIU are substantially intertwined using a “Muscle for the Money” component

According to the new report, a combination of electioneering, intimidation and threats of litigation have been refined into an art form to force private corporations and government officials alike into deals and political compromises at the expense of taxpayers.

* receipt by ACORN of $5,609,338.00 dollars from the Service Employees International Union, the same union that used violence to intimidate townhall activists protesting Obamacare last summer; * Florida state senator Anthony Hill was simultaneously employed by SEIU and ACORN; Senator Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.), former Governor Rod Blagojevich (D-Ill.), and Congressman Gerry Connolly (D-Va.) have received the support of SEIU’s ACORN affiliates.

3. ACORN, as a corporation, is responsible for submitting thousands of fraudulent U.S. voter registrations

Examinations of documentation from state election offices reveals late filing dumps of volumes of fraudulent voter registration cards the report found were intended to overwhelm the system in an effort compromise free and fair elections promised in the Constitution of the United States.

4. ACORN contributed to the risky sub-prime lending that led to the U.S. housing bubble financial collapse.

“ACORN drafted language to loosen underwriting standards and decrease down payments in the housing industry, paving the way for the high rate of subprime loans millions of Americans eventually defaulted on.

“ACORN used provisions in the Community Reinvestment Act of 1977 that allowed community groups to challenge bank mergers and acquisitions if a bank did not adequately invest in its own community. These challenges, which featured ACORN's standard intimidation tactics, successfully forced banks to make lending agreements with ACORN Housing. If banks refused ACORN’s demands, they jeopardized approval of mergers in a timely manner. ACORN Housing moved to become a conventional service provider for the loans. ACORN reaped profits from over a billion dollars in loans to low-income neighborhoods. Because of the policies and financial instruments developed, in part through ACORN’s lobbying activities, borrowers eventually defaulted on the loans. The end result was the bursting of the housing bubble.

“ACORN Housing received a total of $39,925,620.13 from Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase & Co., CitiBank, HSBC, CapitalOne, and SunTrust. These lenders and banks also provided ACORN with grants, address and bank account information of at-risk homeowners so ACORN could provide free counseling services. Instead, ACORN used the address and bank account information to target struggling Americans who would be signed up as dues-paying members of ACORN. ACORN’s membership recruiting brought in $48 million a year for ACORN -- a boon for their Muscle for Money program.”

The report also reveals how taxpayer money is still being channeled to ACORN despite the passage of legislation to end taxpayer support.

“In response to the [Continuing Resolution] that cut their funding, ACORN sued the United States of America in the Federal District Court in the Eastern District of New York, arguing that the CR constituted an unconstitutional Bill of Attainder, or punishment without the due process guarantees of a judicial trial. Judge Nina Gershon, a federal judge, presided over the case. On December 11, 2009, Judge Gershon issued an injunction against the United States – an order preventing the United State from enforcing the CR – the funding ban against ACORN. However, as the Justice Department argued, the issue was moot because the CR expired December 18, 2009. Fortunately for ACORN, Judge Gershon allowed ACORN to amend its pleadings and challenge all of the anti-ACORN laws, including Public Laws 111-117, 111-88, and 111-118 as unconstitutional bills of attainder. According to the Louisiana Department of Justice, ACORN is nearing financial bankruptcy, as most of its donors have cut ties with the corporation. However, under Judge Gershon’s decision, ACORN will continue to receive taxpayer dollars from the Federal Government. In other words, the American people will have BAILED OUT ACORN.”

Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Ca.), top Republican on the Oversight committee, released the report.

“Perceptions that ACORN is a charitable organization are simply wrong and part of ACORN’s efforts to deceive the American people,” Issa said. “ACORN is a political machine that uses a complex corporate web, connections to the SEIU, and powerful political allies to break laws in pursuit of a partisan agenda. This report shines more disinfecting sunlight on ACORN’s secretive methods of abusing taxpayer funds and charitable donations. This report shines more disinfecting sunlight on ACORN's secretive methods of abusing taxpayer funds and charitable donations.”

Issa is speaking this afternoon before the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Washington, D.C. The CPAC conference is being televised live on C-SPAN.

““Follow the Money: ACORN, SEIU and .. Allies”)”

Indeed.

Allies....

Immigration...healthcare...ALL the same enforcers....

SEIU & AARP....FYI

“AARP does not operate a PAC, but its employees gave candidates, committees and parties $53,200, with Democrats receiving 90 percent of that.”
http://www.opensecrets.org/news/2009/02/special-interests-to-listen-ca.html

SEIU & AARP...joined at the hip and helping write amnesty/healthcare legislation. AARP uses your dollars to fund the likes of:

MALDEF - Mexican-American Legal Defense and Education Fund

AARP says: “”Anybody who looks at immigration has to look at aging,” says Harry R. Moody, director of academic affairs at AARP. “First, immigration affects the age structure of society” by adding younger members to the population, he says. “Second, the people who do hands-on care work are immigrants. Look at our nursing homes! We have an image of people picking tomatoes — that’s not the whole story. Immigrants are the front-line caregivers.”
http://www.maldef.org/truthinimmigration/camarota_asks_how_many_americans09072008/index.html

& http://www.americanpatrol.com/MALDEF/Contributors-2002-2003.html (Fannie Mae gives to them, too!)

AARP also contributes to LULAC

La Raza
http://www.nclr.org/section/awards
http://michellemalkin.com/2008/04/03/the-left-wing-mortgage-counseling-racket/

And from AARP’s ‘Latino’ magazine....
http://www.aarpsegundajuventud.org/english/presence/index.html

Meet AARP’s New CEO: A. Barry Rand

A. Barry Rand, chairman of the Board of Trustees at Howard University and a nationally recognized agent for social change, has been tapped as AARP’s new chief executive officer. He will become the organization’s first African American CEO when he assumes the position in April.

AARP Welcomes Jacob Lozada

AARP Board member Jacob Lozada gives AARP Segunda Juventud readers his perspective on issues facing U.S. Hispanics and how he hopes to boost AARP’s profile in his native Puerto Rico.

AND AARP works hand in hand with the SEIU. They are the ones formulating the legislation that the dems are pushing.

“– AARP, Business Roundtable and SEIU, which together represent more than 50 million Americans, today took another groundbreaking step for their “Divided We Fail” group by jointly delivering endorsed principles for health information technology (IT) legislation to Congress.

http://www.businessroundtable.org/press_release/aarp_business_roundtable_and_seiu_deliver_end

SEIU Members to Politicians: Live Up to Your Promises Or We Will Hold You Accountable
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE>BR> Published May 8, 2008 12:00 AM

Tough Political Accountability Major Part of Unprecedented 'Justice for All' Plan to Change America Union prepared to spend more than $150 million, mobilize tens of thousands during and AFTER the election to win healthcare, big improvements for working people.

WASHINGTON, DC-Members and leaders of the nation's strongest and fastest growing union say they will hold elected leaders strictly accountable if they say one thing before an election and then do something else.

As part of the union's proposed "Justice for All"plan, SEIU members will continue the 2008 political campaign past the election and through the first 100 days of a new administration in order to win affordable healthcare and rebuild the middle class by restoring workers' freedom to join unions. What's more, the union is willing to spend $10 million to oppose elected leaders who turn their backs on these and other key issues for working people.

"This is our chance, our time to change America, and we are no longer willing to put up with the doubletalk and political hedging we've too often heard in the past,"said SEIU President Andy Stern. "SEIU members expect that elected leaders will live up to their promises, and if they don't, we will work to elect someone else."

The "Justice for All"plan has been unanimously adopted by the SEIU International Executive Board, which includes 57 elected leaders from throughout the union representing 87 percent of the union's membership. It will be debated by members at SEIU's convention in early June.

"We have learned the hard way that winning in November can be a hollow victory if we don't keep elected officials' feet to the fire after the election,"said SEIU Secretary-Treasurer Anna Burger. "So SEIU members are not stopping on November 4. We will keep campaigning and keep fighting to win healthcare and restore economic balance in America between those who work for a living and those with wealth. And we will do it with the same resources, passion, and effort we are using to support and help elect pro-worker candidates in the election."

In February SEIU members, along with several other organizations, provided a dramatic preview of the new "no nonsense"political accountability program, defeating long-time Democratic incumbent Al Wynn in Maryland and helping elect Donna Edwards. In 2007, SEIU members in Chicago sponsored a group of pro-worker candidates who ousted seven incumbent Chicago aldermen allied with the Chicago Mayor Richard Daley political machine.

The tough approach to political accountability is just one part of the "Justice for All"plan, an unprecedented blueprint to transform the union in order to align the members, staff, and resources to win affordable healthcare and rebuild the middle class by restoring workers' freedom to join unions.

Under the plan, SEIU leaders are pledging to spend more than $150 million and put tens of thousands of members in motion to achieve those goals by the end of the first 100 days of a new administration.

SEIU leaders also pledged to continue the union's unprecedented growth by creating a national plan to unite more than 500,000 new members in the union by 2012. That would make SEIU the largest union in American history that is not exclusively public sector, and ensure that it has the strength to continue winning high standards of pay and benefits for its members and all working people.

In addition, SEIU leaders also voted to continue working with unions around the world to build a global workers' movement for justice.

The "Justice for All"plan calls for dramatic changes in SEIU In addition to the $75 million SEIU has committed to the upcoming election, the union will create an initial $10 million fund to take on elected officials who fail to live up to their promises. It calls for SEIU members to make at least 10 million phone calls to members of Congress after the election to hold them accountable. At least 50 percent of the union's organizing budget and 50 percent of its non-organizing staff at the national and local levels will be devoted to the effort.

"Winning healthcare and restoring the American Dream can't be done by a handful of people in each local union or in Washington, DC. It will take an army of working people fanned out across America, and that's what we're going to build,"Burger said.

A commitment to jumpstart a much broader, permanent grassroots movement of working people by actively involving at least one million SEIU members in the "justice for all"effort by 2012, and creating leadership roles for at least 200,000 (or about 10 percent of the union's membership).

SEIU is the first U.S. union to pioneer the use of round-the-clock "member resource centers"that use 21st century phone and computer technology to provide trained, immediate expert response and assistance to members in their own language, 24/7, and give them information about how to get involved in campaigns on worker issues.

The local unions that have experimented with these centers in Southern California, Chicago, New York, and Oregon have found that the approach is not only more effective for individual members but also frees staff and workplace stewards to involve a majority of members in campaigns on key issues such as:

fixing the broken healthcare system; addressing the growing wealth gap; providing a path to citizenship for hard-working, taxpaying immigrants; ensuring quality services in local communities with fair, reliable funding; and ending the war in Iraq and then providing necessary services for returning veterans.

Under the "Justice for All"plan local leaders will ask the convention delegates to adopt, at least a million SEIU members will have access to such centers by 2012.

Because of unprecedented innovations adopted in the past 12 years, SEIU has been the fastest growing union in North America, representing a million more workers today than in 1996, at a time when most other unions are suffering rapid declines. The growth has given workers the strength to win healthcare coverage and wages that can support families. Service Employees International Union Change to Win Federation USA Canadian Labour Congress 1800 Massachusetts Avenue NW Washington, DC 20036

"Follow the Money: ACORN, SEIU and .. Allies": The Issa report includes a blistering executive summary: ACORN and SEIU entered into illegal agreements that constitute a criminal conspiracy....... and identified a pattern of alleged criminal acts.

COLLUDING TO FUND DEMOCRATS' VOTE-BUYING MACHINE

Clinton pictured above with ACORN founder Wade Rathke.
The tax-exempt Clinton Foundation had just donated $250,000 to ACORN.

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BACKSTORY In addition to the $250,000, the tax-exempt Clinton Foundation also provided $275,000 in tax-exempt grants supposedly for ACORNS’S "Katrina Benefits Access project" and ACORN'S "Operation Hope Project; Restore Hope." The tax-exempt Clinton Foundation also helped secure "private sector" commitments for ACORN.

JUST WONDERING Can ACORN produce records on how they spent the money? Oh, nevermind. The IRS, SEC, FBI, Congress and the GAO can find out (/snic).

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The IRS has pinpointed tax-exempts and non-profits as the locus classicus for money laundering and tax evasion (stolen money is taxable). The biggest frauds are tax-exempts writing checks to other tax-exempts---the way these "altruistic do-gooders" siphon off, then launder, tax-free monies for themselves.

The Rathkes embezzled millions from ACORN --- but their activities offshore gives rise to concerns about massive govt fraud and money laundering.

Since 1970, ACORN has organized in 1,200 neighborhood chapters in 110 cities across the US and in cities in Canada, Mexico, the Dominican Republic, Peru, Argentina and India.

ACORN also appears to have been involved in improper use of pension funds ..... some of the Rathke embezzlment was apparently taken from the pension fund using ACORN's American Express card. This displacement of funding led to the creation of a complex repayment system in which accused embezzler Dale Rathke owed ACORN, and ACORN in turn, owed ABA, which, for its part, wrote off part of the money. (Excerpt) Read more at spectator.org ...

ACORN receives funding from a variety of tax-exempt private charitable organizations: the Bauman Family Foundation, George Soros' Open Society Institute, the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation and from corporate foundations, including JP Morgan Chase Foundation, Ben & Jerry's foundation, Bank of America Charitable Foundation, and Citigroup, as well as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Ford Foundation, and tax-exempt foundations affiliated with the founder of (UPS). (NPR: ACORN's Money Tree Has Many Branches, October 15, 2008).

A full list of ACORN and ACORN affiliate donors is available from the Capital Research Center, a non-profit organization which studies political advocacy groups. (Foundation Watch, 2008: Capital Research Center Cracks the ACORN)

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