MICHAEL O. ALLEN

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ACORN

Republican war against voting

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The GOP’s Blame-ACORN Game By Peter Dreier & John Atlas This article appeared in the November 10, 2008 edition of The Nation.

An increasingly desperate Republican attack machine has recently identified the community organizing group ACORN as Public Enemy Number One. Among ACORN’s alleged crimes, perhaps the most serious is that it caused, nearly single-handedly, the world’s financial crisis. That’s the fantasy. In the reality-based world, it was ACORN that sounded the alarm about the exploitative lending practices that led to the current mortgage meltdown and financial crisis.

Since the 1970s ACORN, which has 400,000 low- and moderate-income “member families” in more than 100 cities in forty states, has been warning Congress to protect borrowers from the banking industry’s irresponsible, risky and predatory practices–subprime loans, racial discrimination (called “redlining”) and rip-off fees. ACORN has persistently called for stronger regulations on banks, private mortgage companies, mortgage brokers and rating agencies. For years, ACORN has alerted public officials that the industry was hoodwinking many families into taking out risky loans they couldn’t afford and whose fine print they couldn’t understand.

Now John McCain and his fellow conservatives are accusing ACORN of strong-arming Congress and big Wall Street banks into making subprime loans to poor families who couldn’t afford them, thus causing the economic disaster. McCain’s campaign is running a one-and-a-half-minute video that claims Barack Obama once worked for ACORN, repeats the accusation that ACORN is responsible for widespread voter registration fraud and accuses ACORN of “bullying banks, intimidation tactics, and disruption of business.” The ad claims that ACORN “forced banks to issue risky home loans–the same types of loans that caused the financial crisis we’re in today.”

For months, the right-wing echo chamber–bloggers, columnists, editorial writers and TV and radio talk-show hosts–has pitched in with a well-orchestrated campaign to blame the mortgage crisis on ACORN and the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA), the 1977 anti-redlining law. In a September 27 editorial, the Wall Street Journal wrote that “ACORN has promoted laws like the Community Reinvestment Act, which laid the foundation for the house of cards built out of subprime loans” and then falsely claimed the bailout bill would create a trust fund “pipeline” to fill ACORN’s coffers. On October 14 the Journal‘s lead editorial, Obama and ACORN, described ACORN as a “shady outfit” and accused the group of being “a major contributor to the subprime meltdown by pushing lenders to make home loans on easy terms, conducting ‘strikes’ against banks so they’d lower credit standards.”

Continue . . .

October 25, 2008
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NYT Editorial-The Acorn Story

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In Wednesday night’s debate, John McCain warned that a group called Acorn is “on the verge of maybe perpetrating one of the greatest frauds in voter history” and “may be destroying the fabric of democracy.” Viewers may have been wondering what Mr. McCain was talking about. So were we.

Acorn is a nonprofit group that advocates for low- and moderate-income people and has mounted a major voter-registration drive this year. Acorn says that it has paid more than 8,000 canvassers who have registered about 1.3 million new voters, many of them poor people and members of racial minorities.

In recent weeks, the McCain campaign has accused the group of perpetrating voter fraud by intentionally submitting invalid registration forms, including some with fictional names like Mickey Mouse and others for voters who are already registered.

Based on the information that has come to light so far, the charges appear to be wildly overblown — and intended to hobble Acorn’s efforts.

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October 17, 2008
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Conyers’ letter

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House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers Jr., (D-Michigan), wrote a letter to AG Michael Mukasey and FBI Director John Mueller on Thursday to let them know that he’s watching their disgraceful investigation of the community organizing group ACORN. Here’s a link to the letter: conyers081016

Excerpts:

It is with shock and disappointment that I read today’s Associated Press report that the Federal Bureau of Investigation has opened and leaked an investigation into whether ACORN, a longstanding and well regarded organization that fights for the poor and working class, is involved in nationwide voter fraud.

As an initial matter, it is simply unacceptable that such information would be leaked during the very peak of the election season. Such leaks of information about ongoing criminal investigation matters are always inappropriate, and likely violate the provisions of the U.S.

*   *   *

Moreover, this news is all the more troubling in light of the proven wrongdoing at the Justice Department in the United States Attorneys scandal. As you are aware, there is extensive evidence that political operatives improperly pressured United States Attorneys to investigate and prosecute spurious claims of vote fraud in close proximity to an election. When some did not, they were terminated. Thus, one must view the timing of this extraordinary leak with added suspicion, given that it comes less than 24 hours after the Republican Presidential candidate raised these allegations in a nationally televised debate.

I know that it has become a right-wing cottage industry to cry wolf over alleged “voter fraud” during an election season (only to have such claims evaporate after the election has concluded). Indeed, using superlatives that would make P.T. Barnum blush, Senator John McCain, the Republican Presidential candidate, said in the debate last night, that ACORN “is now on the verge of maybe perpetuating one of the greatest frauds in voter history in this country, maybe destroying the fabric of democracy.” One would hope the Justice Department and FBI would more skeptically examine such sensational accusations than some cable news outlets. And this is particularly true where the allegations, even given their fullest reading, simply do not support such alarmist and unreasonable claims.

*   *   *

At the same time, numerous allegations have emerged that political operatives are engaged in supression of eligible voters and this activity has apparently failed to receive the intense attention that the federal government is now reportedly devoting to ACORN. For example, there are reports that the chairman of the Republican Party in Macomb County, Michigan, a key swing county in a key swing state, has planned to use a list of foreclosed homes to block people from voting in the upcoming election as part of the state GOP’s effort to challenge some voters on Election Day. Additionally, the Columbus Dispatch reports that the Ohio GOP in Franklin County, “has not ruled out challenging voters before the election due to foreclosure-related address issues.

Mukasey let it be known during his confirmation hearing that his Justice Department would not follow the rule of law. But, what about Mueller?

He has made gestures in the past that he wanted no part of being a henchman, that he would restore luster to the Federal Bureau of Investigations as a premier law enforcement organization. He should not be part of this investigation, which stinks to high heavens, on the eve of one of the most important presidential and Congressional elections in our nation’s history.

October 17, 2008
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Bamboozling ACORN

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Just in case anyone had any doubt that George W. Bush’s highly politicized Justice Department is up to its old tricks in the raids and investigation of ACORN’s voter registration efforts, TalkingPointsMemo posted a video of a similar initiative back in 2006.

The scumbag du jour was Bradley Schlozman, a thug with a history of intimidating voters from voting, especially minority voters. It was almost cruel watching this worm squirm under the glare of U.S. Sen. Patrick Leahy, (D-VT). But the right wing noise has taken up the cry about ACORN and that’s all we’re going to hear from now until Election Day.

ACORN happens to be made up of minority community organizers that the Justice Dept. and the FBI is used to intimidating close to an election. They are sending a message to minorities: You can vote on Election Day but it ain’t gonna be easy.

October 16, 2008
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