ACORN with in-your-face bank lobby protests for bad mortgages (Community organizing!)

[dr. freeze]

http://www.nypost.com/seven/09292008/postopinion/editorials/the_meltdowns_acorn_131274.htm

As Stanley Kurtz details on the opposite page, Obama spent many years cultivating ties with, working with - and even funding - the very folks who pushed for the risky lending that underlies the current mess.

That is, "community organizer" groups like ACORN.

ACORN is especially noteworthy, not only because of its prominence in the drive to relax mortgage requirements, but also because of its shady tactics.

And its links to Obama.

Various ACORN chapters across the country, led by folks like Chicago's Madeline Talbott, staged in-your-face protests in bank lobbies and filed complaints meant to hold up mergers sought by targeted banking firms.

Unless the banks agreed to ACORN's terms - which many (understandably) did.
Talbott & Co. generally wanted them to ease down-payment requirements and ignore weak credit histories. And their intimidating tactics often necessitated police action, as at a '97 protest at Pulaski Bank & Trust in Arkansas, where activists blocked drive-through lanes.

The movement's biggest victory, of course, came when Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac began buying up the riskier loans - providing fresh incentive for banks to make even more of them.

No need to recount where all that led.

Meanwhile, Obama was right there by ACORN's side all along.

"I've been fighting alongside ACORN on issues you care about my entire career," he told the group last November.

Indeed, in the early '90s, Obama was recruited by Talbott herself to run training sessions for ACORN activists.

ACORN also got funding from two charities, the Woods Fund and the Joyce Foundation, when Obama served on their boards, and from the Chicago Annenberg Challenge - the radical "education reform" outfit Obama ran from '95 to '99.

Ironically, the group stood to be a key beneficiary of the goodies Democrats were loading into Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson's rescue plan - including one demand that 20 percent of any profits the feds make from reselling mortgage securities go to fund groups like ACORN.

 

[dr. freeze]

http://www.nypost.com/seven/09292008/postopinion/opedcolumnists/os_dangerous_pals_131216.htm

 

[djv]

If you listen to Congress and Paulson the current problem started around end of 04 early 05. not 03 or even 01. And forsure not 98.

 

[dr. freeze]

ACORN, Obama, and the Mortgage Mess
By Mona Charen
The financial markets were teetering on the edge of an abyss last week. The secretary of the Treasury was literally on his knees begging the speaker of the House not to sabotage the bailout bill. The crash of falling banks made the earth tremble. The Republican presidential candidate suspended his campaign to deal with the crisis. And amid all this, the Democrats in Congress managed to find time to slip language into the bailout legislation that would provide a dandy little slush fund for ACORN.

ACORN stands for the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, a busy hive of left-wing agitation and "direct action" that claims chapters in 50 cities and 100,000 dues-paying members. ACORN is where Sixties leftovers who couldn't get tenure at universities wound up. That the bill-writing Democrats remembered their pet clients during such an emergency speaks volumes. This attempted gift to ACORN (stripped out of the bill after outraged howls from Republicans) demonstrates how little Democrats understand about what caused the mess we're in.


ACORN does many things under the umbrella of "community organizing." They agitate for higher minimum wages, attempt to thwart school reform, try to unionize welfare workers (that is, those welfare recipients who are obliged to work in exchange for benefits) and organize voter registration efforts (always for Democrats, of course). Because they are on the side of righteousness and justice, they aren't especially fastidious about their methods. In 2006, for example, ACORN registered 1,800 new voters in Washington. The only trouble was, with the exception of six, all of the names submitted were fake. The secretary of state called it the "worst case of election fraud in our state's history." As Fox News reported:

"The ACORN workers told state investigators that they went to the Seattle public library, sat at a table and filled out the voter registration forms. They made up names, addresses, and Social Security numbers and in some cases plucked names from the phone book. One worker said it was a lot of hard work making up all those names and another said he would sit at home, smoke marijuana and fill out the forms."

ACORN explained that this was an "isolated" incident, yet similar stories have been reported in Missouri, Michigan, Ohio, and Colorado -- all swing states, by the way. ACORN members have been prosecuted for voter fraud in a number of states. (See www.rottenacorn.com.) Their philosophy seems to be that everyone deserves the right to vote, whether legal or illegal, living or dead.

ACORN recognized very early the opportunity presented by the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) of 1977. As Stanley Kurtz has reported, ACORN proudly touted "affirmative action" lending and pressured banks to make subprime loans. Madeline Talbott, a Chicago ACORN leader, boasted of "dragging banks kicking and screaming" into dubious loans. And, as Sol Stern reported in City Journal, ACORN also found a remunerative niche as an "advisor" to banks seeking regulatory approval. "Thus we have J.P. Morgan & Co., 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." Is this a great country or what? As conservative community activist Robert Woodson put it, "The same corporations that pay ransom to Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton pay ransom to ACORN."

ACORN attracted Barack Obama in his youthful community organizing days. Madeline Talbott hired him to train her staff -- the very people who would later descend on Chicago's banks as CRA shakedown artists. The Democratic nominee later funneled money to the group through the Woods Fund, on whose board he sat, and through the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, ditto. Obama was not just sympathetic -- he was an ACORN fellow traveler.

Now you could make the case that before 2008, well-intentioned people were simply unaware of what their agitation on behalf of non-credit-worthy borrowers could lead to. But now? With the whole financial world and possibly the world economy trembling and cracking like a cement building in an earthquake, Democrats continue to try to fund their friends at ACORN? And, unashamed, they then trot out to the TV cameras to declare "the party is over" for Wall Street (Nancy Pelosi)? The party should be over for the Democrats who brought us to this pass. If Obama wins, it means hiring an arsonist to fight a fire.

 

[dr. freeze]

If you listen to Congress and Paulson the current problem started around end of 04 early 05. not 03 or even 01. And forsure not 98.

DJV I am not so sure I listen to Congress, Paulson, or GWB anymore. You should know this of all people.

Be thankful we had 225 patriots who stood up for the American taxpayer and future generations yesterday.

 

[DOGS THAT BARK]

Doc I've been on the ACORN rant as well--and if everyone knew more about this outfit an their objectives and backers.
Was fortunte the Rebs cut ACORn contributions from current bail out proposal---That Barney and Dodds had written in.
Here is open letter prior to this fiasco from watchdog groups--

Open letter to Congress on Dodd-Frank mortgage housing bill
by Clyde Wayne Crews
June 17, 2008

Open letter to the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives

As groups representing millions of taxpayers nationwide, we are writing to respectfully urge you to vote ?no? on the Dodd-Frank mortgage housing bill, which may be considered by the full Senate later this month.
This legislation contains over $500 million a year in new permanent, mandatory spending, and creates a new $300 billion taxpayer loan guarantee liability that nearly doubles the size of the Federal Housing Administration (FHA).

First, the Dodd plan creates a new housing trust fund that will collect more than $530 million a year through a new levy on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The trust fund in turn makes these funds available to politically active community groups like ACORN outside of normal appropriations oversight.

Second, the Dodd plan creates a new $300 billion facility that allows mortgage lenders to cherry-pick their worst performing loans and roll them into the FHA, creating new loans that shift 100 percent of the loan liability to the taxpayer.

We salute the efforts by Senator Richard Shelby to include GSE reform in this legislation, but we feel improved GSE oversight should stand on its own merit, and that the immediate new spending and taxpayer risks outweigh the benefits of this legislation.

In sum, the Dodd-Frank bill is the wrong answer to the housing crisis. It rewards the least prudent borrowers and their lenders and puts taxpayers on the hook for the riskiest loans. We urge your opposition.

Sincerely,

Matt Kibbe, President FreedomWorks

Duane Parde, President National Taxpayer?s Union

David Keene, President American Conservative Union

Thomas Schatz, President Citizens Against Government Waste

Andrew M. Langer, President The Institute for Liberty

Wayne Crews, Vice President for Policy Competitive Enterprise Institute

Pat Toomey, President The Club for Growth

Grover Norquist, President Americans for Tax Reform

 

[dr. freeze]

Where are the lefties? Haven't you read these articles?

Crickets.......
:0corn :0corn :0corn :director: :director: :director:

 

[buddy]

Where are the lefties? Haven't you read these articles?

Lefties pay attention to things that matter.