Congressional Report Exposes Fraud And Corrpution With ACORN

Most of us have known that the voter-fraud organization known as ACORN is among the most corrupt entities being given access to Capitol Hill by the Democrats. Now, a new report coming out of Congress shows that the corruption runs deeper than we first thought.

From Fox News:

[T]he report offers the first detailed account of the allegations that have dogged the organization in recent months. The executive summary of the report says ACORN provided contributions of financial and personnel resources to indicted former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown and candidate Obama, among others, in what the report calls a scheme to use taxpayer money to support a partisan political agenda, which would be a clear violation of numerous tax and election laws. "Both structurally and operationally, ACORN hides behind a paper wall of nonprofit corporate protections to conceal a criminal conspiracy on the part of its directors, to launder federal money in order to pursue a partisan agenda and to manipulate the American electorate," an executive summary of the report reads.

Of course, ACORN is denying all charges. But they cannot deny the facts in the case:

The report accuses ACORN, after receiving more than $53 million in federal funds since 1994, of blurring the legal distinctions among 361 tax-exempt and non-exempt entities to divert that money into partisan political activities. Evidence found in the report relies in part on documents provided by former ACORN employees. "Operationally, ACORN is a shell game played in 120 cities, 43 states and the District of Columbia through a complex structure designed to conceal illegal activities, to use taxpayer and tax-exempt dollars for partisan political purposes, and to distract investigators," the report read. "Structurally, ACORN is a chess game in which senior management is shielded from accountability by multiple layers of volunteers and compensated employees who serve as pawns to take the fall for every bad act."

These are very serious findings that we Americans should take note of and demand accountability from our elected representatives.

Here's why:

It would be up to the chairman of the oversight panel to hold hearings on the ACORN report and up to the Justice Department to pursue a criminal investigation. Likewise, the census director will determine whether ACORN remains a partner with the U.S. Census Bureau to assist with the recruitment of the 1.4 million temporary workers needed to go door-to-door to count every person in the United States.

Do we want an organization that actively engages in voter fraud and other corrupt activities to be involved in something so important as a Constitutionally mandated census?

No. We do not. ACORN should be dissolved and their leaders arrested and frog-marched to prison.

You can access the complete article on-line here:

GOP Congressional Report Accuses ACORN Of Political Corruption, Widespread Fraud
FoxNews.com
July 22, 2009

New York Times Kills Story Detailing Obama/ACORN Relationship And Violation Of Campaign Finance Laws

Now, you know that if this had happened to a Conservative Republican, the NYT would have run it as front page news for two weeks. But because Obama is a leftist socialist, the NYT spiked it.

Back in 2008, the Obama campaign conspired with the voter-fraud group ACORN to violate campaign finance laws. When the NYT learned of the story, they immediately buried it.

Powerline Blog has a very comprehensive report:

Times reporter Stephanie Strom was looking into ACORN, and she had a source, a former ACORN employee named Anita Moncrief. Moncrief told Strom that she had evidence of "constant contact" between ACORN's Project Vote and both the Obama and Clinton campaigns: On Sept. 7, Moncrief wrote to Strom that she had donor lists from the campaigns of Obama and Hillary Clinton and that there had been "constant contact" between the campaigns and Project Vote, an Acorn affiliate whose tax-exempt status forbids it to engage in partisan politics. Moncrief said she had withheld that information earlier but was disclosing it now that the conservative columnist Michelle Malkin was "all over it." "I am sorry," she wrote, "but I believe in Obama and did not want to help the Republicans." A key part of Moncrief's story was that the Obama campaign had furnished ACORN with lists of maxed-out donors so that ACORN could mine them for contributions. In fact, Moncrief provided the Times reporter, Strom, with such a list that ACORN allegedly obtained from the Obama campaign. Hoyt does not dispute that this story, if true, was evidence of violation of the campaign finance laws.

Now, you would think that a news outlet that claims to be the "watchdog of government" would have been all over this story and reporting it to the people. Not the NYT. They immediately began to cover it up in an effort to help Barack Obama get away with breaking the law during his run for the presidency.

New York Times Public Editor Clark Hoyt had been "investigating" the whole situation, but what he was looking at seemed to be completely different from what everyone else was seeing.

More:

The story became public because a Republican lawyer named Heather Heidelbaugh testified, apparently based on information she got from Anita Moncrief, that the Times had been working on an Obama-ACORN story but that "Ms. Strom reported to Ms. Moncrief that her editors at The New York Times wanted her to kill the story because, and I quote, 'it was a game-changer.'" Hoyt undertakes to show that this charge was false. He admits, though, that Strom's editor, Suzanne Daley, "called a halt to Strom's pursuit of the Obama angle." So the Times did kill the investigation and any further reporting. The only question is why. Hoyt uncritically accepts Daley's explanation: "We had worked on that story for a while and had come up empty-handed," Daley said. "You have to cut bait after a while." She said she never thought of the story as a game-changer and never used that term with Strom. But wait! Hoyt also relates that shortly before Daley pulled the plug, "Moncrief finally agreed to go on the record" and Strom had scheduled a meeting with her. It was when she called Moncrief to cancel the meeting that Strom allegedly told her that her bosses had killed the investigation to protect Obama. Obviously, if Strom was about to hit pay-dirt with an on-the-record witness, Daley's assertion that she killed the story because Strom "had come up empty-handed" is false.

As I've said before. Only the most naive and gullible would believe that leftist news outlets like the NYT are fair and objective.

You can access the complete story on-line here:

Killing A Story: How It's Done
Power Line
May 17, 2009

You can read about Anita Moncrief's involvement on-line here:

Fired ACORN Affiliate Staffer Links Donor List To Obama
Brad Bumsted
Pittsburgh Tribune-Review
October 30, 2008

You can also watch a good video about this story over at Hot Air:

O’Reilly: How The NYT Buried An Obama/ACORN Expose Just Before The Election
Hot Air
May 18, 2009

Pro-Amnesty Groups To Help Obama In The Census: No Illegal Alien Left Behind

ACORN, the voter-fraud organization that worked so hard to register voters like Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck and Clark Kent, along with pro-amnesty groups like Voto Latino and Service Employees International Union (SEIU) will be helping Barack Obama make sure that illegals are counted as population in the upcoming census thereby helping to ensure that the Dems will maintain a majority and will be able to force their disastrous socialist agenda on the rest of us.

No, this is not the plot of some futuristic movie from the 1970's. It is cold, hard reality today. Commerce Secretary Gary Locke set this wheel in motion when he told the "government's partners" (i.e. ACORN, Voto Latino and SEIU) that the "privacy rights" of census takers would not be violated. What that means is that the people doing the census will not ask whether or not a family being counted is actually a legitimate family or an illegal family.

That will have long-range consequences on the politcal map here in the United States.

Writing for Town Hall, Michelle Malkin has the following:

Obama's census partners are using the process to pressure homeland security agents to halt interior enforcement efforts and workplace raids so that illegal alien cooperation with the national survey is maximized. Inclusion of the massive illegal alien population has resulted in a radical redrawing of the electoral map. The census is used to divvy up seats in the House as a proportion of their population based on the headcount. More people equals more seats. More illegal immigrants counted equals more power. This is not hypothetical. The Center for Immigration Studies determined that in the 2000 election cycle, the presence of non-citizens, including illegal immigrants, temporary visitors and green-card holders, caused nine seats in the House to switch hands. As the think tank's analysis reported: California added six seats it would not have had otherwise. Texas, New York and Florida each gained a seat. Indiana, Michigan, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin each lost a seat. Montana, Kentucky and Utah each failed to secure a seat they would otherwise have gained.

Given ACORN's track record at fraudulently registering voters over the past eight years, it is very likely that ACORN may use those same fraud techniques to influence the census count and make sure that Congress and the federal government remains in the hands of the socialists.

And Obama himself is already making sure that illegals are free to remain in the United States for the census:

The Obama Department of Homeland Security is already continuing the tradition -- reversing the work of investigative agents who have uncovered massive document fraud at illegal alien worksites, and cutting immigration and customs enforcement operations at the knees. During the eight years of the Bush administration, groups such as ACORN received millions of dollars in subsidies. The pro-amnesty faction of the GOP pandered to unions such as the SEIU and ethnic lobbying groups such as Voto Latino seeking to boost their membership rolls. Now Republicans can only stand by helplessly while the political opponents they helped fund use the census to wipe them off the electoral map. You reap what you sow.

I wonder if those pro-amnesty Republicans are going to recant all those speeches they made when they tried to shove amnesty down our throats back in 2007.

Do you, as an American, want the future of our nation determined by a bunch of aliens who entered and stayed in the county illegally? I don't.

You can access the complete column on-line here:

Obama Census Plan: No Illegal Alien Left Behind
Michelle Malkin
TownHall.com
April 3, 2009

Bailed Out Bank Of America Hands $2 Million To Voter-Fraud Organization

Let's see: Corporate conferences, remodeling rest rooms, paying out bonuses to employees. Any of that done by a bank that received bail-out funds causes the Dems to scream bloody murder.

But, if a bank that received bail-out funds donates to an organization that actively engages in voter-fruad, well, the Dems are okay with that.

From Amanda Carpenter at Town Hall:

Bank of America, one of the many banks to benefiting from a government bailout, is giving more than $2.1 million directly to the controversial interest group ACORN that engaged in fraudulent voter registration activities in the 2008 election. The January 29 Chronicle of Philanthropy [subscription only] reported Bank of America's Charitable Foundation is giving the interest group $2,155,000 "for efforts to prevent foreclosures and educate people about finances and purchasing homes." The gift is being made in four separate allocations, most of them going to Chicago--the city President Obama hails from. ACORN endorsed Obama in the 2008 presidential election and actively worked to elect him by conducting various get-out-the-vote activities. In the process of those activities ACORN submitted hundreds of fraudulent voter registration forms to local election offices. Two of the grants, one for $2 million and another for $85,000 are being made to a Chicago ACORN corporation. Another, for $20,000, is being given to a Las Vegas chapter. And, $50,000 is being gifted to ACORN in Miami.

Notice that the lion's share went ot the Chicago-based chapter? Looks like Obama may be paying off his political allies using taxpayer dollars.

You can access the original article on-line here:

Bailed Out Band Of America Gives $2M To ACORN
Amanda Carpenter
TownHall.com
February 2, 2009

Obama Breaks Another Promise

Obama Bans Earmarks From Stimulus Package
84rules
January 6, 2009

Well, it didn't take long for Obama to break that promise. Or maybe he forgot to tell the Dems who control Congress that pork was banned. Here is a listing of what this pork-laden, useless spending bill contains:

- $1 billion for Amtrak, which hasn’t earned a profit in four decades.

- $2 billion to help subsidize child care.

- $400 million for research into the junk science of global warming.

- $2.4 billion for projects to demonstrate how carbon greenhouse gas can be safely removed from the atmosphere, another junk science project.

- $650 million for coupons to help consumers convert their TV sets from analog to digital, part of the digital TV conversion.

- $600 million to buy a new fleet of cars for federal employees and government departments.

- $75 million to fund programs to help people quit smoking.

- $21 million to re-sod the National Mall, which suffered heavy use during the Inauguration.

- $2.25 billion for national parks. This item has sparked calls for an investigation, because the chief lobbyist of the National Parks Association is the son of Rep. David R. Obey, D-Wisc. The $2,25 billion is about equal to the National Park Service’s entire annual budget. The Washington Times reports it is a threefold increase over what was originally proposed for parks in the stimulus bill. Obey is chairman of the House Appropriations Committee.

- $335 million for treatment and prevention of sexually transmitted diseases.

- $50 million for the National Endowment for the Arts.

- $44 million to renovate the headquarters building of the Agriculture Department.

- $32 billion for a “smart electricity grid to minimize waste.

- $87 billion of Medicaid funds, to aid states. This earmark amounts to the first installment of a Socialized Health Care system just like the disasters that have a hold of Canada and Great Britain.

- $53.4 billion for science facilities, high speed Internet, and miscellaneous energy and environmental programs.

- $13 billion to repair and weatherize public housing, help the homeless, repair foreclosed homes.

- $20 billion for quicker depreciation and write-offs for equipment.

- $10.3 billion for tax credits to help families defray the cost of college tuition.

- $20 billion over five years for an expanded food stamp program.

Not to mention the potential $5 billion for ACORN to commit more voter-fraud.

The ACORN Slush Fund: An Example Of Dems Paying Back The Street Thugs

The current spending bill (mis-named as a "stimulus" package) went through the House of Representatives along party lines. Not one single Republican voted for it. Not one. But, eleven Democrats voted agaqinst it it.

It's a good thing that the Republicans acted in unison on this. That means that the Dems will completely own this bill and whatever results from its passage.

One of those results is handing billions of taxpayer's dollars to the voter fraud organization known as the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now or ACORN.

We already know how ACORN routinely engages in voter fraud schemes in order to get leftist candidates (Democrats) elected.

ACORN Voter Fraud Uncovered In Michigan

ACORN Submits Faked Voter Registration Forms

ACORN Voter Fraud Is Widespread

Even More ACORN Voter Fraud

ACORN Tries To Register Mickey Mouse

More Voter Fraud From ACORN

But, they have other activities to keep themselves occupied with as well.

Writing for Town Hall, Michelle Malkin has the following:

ACORN, you may recall, is the left-wing activist group with longtime ties to community organizer-turned-President Barack Obama. The nonprofit, which now takes in 40 percent of its revenues from American taxpayers after four decades on the public teat, has a history of engaging in voter fraud, corporate shakedowns, partisan bullying and pro-illegal immigration lobbying. The Democrats' stimulus proposals could make the group -- and its lesser known but even more radical ideological allies -- eligible for upward of $5 billion in new public cash. Talk about subsidizing failure. These are the same activists that helped sow the seeds of the subprime meltdown. They aggressively played the race card and pressured banks to loosen standards, throw out down payments and lend to some of the nation's riskiest borrowers. Now, these mobs protest across the country, disrupt foreclosure auctions, threaten bank executives and accuse lenders of, yep, racism for lending to those riskiest of borrowers.

Talk about Orwellian logic. First, ACORN helps to apply pressure to banks to make bad loans and then accuses the bank of racism for making such loans. This is what the Dems in Congress want to subsidize with billions of your dollars?

More:

Under the stimulus bill, as nonprofit watchdog Matthew Vadum points out, the middlemen would be eliminated -- "making it easier to get Uncle Sam's largess directly into the hands of the same people who run ACORN's various vote fraud and extortion rackets." Moreover, Vadum reports, "the legislative package provides these funds without the usual prohibition on using government money for lobbying or political activities."

So, the Dems don't want ACORN to be under the same lobbying rules as everyone else. Didn't Barack Obama campaign on restricting lobbyist access to the legislative process? Why is he breaking that promise with ACORN?

Next in line for the stimulus windfall is the Massachusetts-based Neighborhood Assistance Corporation of America (NACA). Founder Bruce Marks proudly calls himself a "bank terrorist." As I reported last spring, Marks threatened to march into the neighborhoods of bank executives and bully their children. He's done it for years, all under the guise of "social justice" and "neighborhood stabilization." Marks' agenda is blatantly political and personally lucrative. NACA -- with dozens of offices across the country -- has a no down payment, no closing costs, low interest rate policy for low-income minority borrowers and takes a hefty fee for each transaction. NACA loan applicants are then required to attend workshops that indoctrinate them in the group's protest thuggery.

Nazi Brown Shirts. That's all these people are. They do not deserve to stick their snouts in the public trough, especially when so many Americans are lacking basic necessities. The Dems seem to be okay with denying those necessities while handing monetary payouts to political allies.

This pork spending bill needs to be stopped. The Republicans in the House were right to all vote "Nay."

You can access the complete article on-line here:

Stimulus Slush Fund For Housing Entitlement Thugs
Michelle Malkin
TownHall.com
January 30, 2009

More Voter Fraud From ACORN

How many times does this have to happen before the Democrats in Congress finally wake up and smell the voter fraud? Millions of taxpayer dollars go to the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) only to have ACORN workers register names like Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck and other fictional names, usually with party registrations of Democrat.

But, since most of this attempted fraud is aimed at getting Democrats elected, the Dems in Congress are in no rush to deal with the problem.

The latest slime dropping from the ACORN vine is Deidra Humphrey who was indicted on December 31, 2008 for submitting false and forged voter registration cards. According to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch:

Deidra Humphrey, 44, of East St. Louis, is expected to appear in U.S. District Court in St. Louis this week after a federal grand jury indicted her on the charges Dec. 31, according to the U.S. Attorney's office. Humphrey is accused of submitting forged and false voter registration cards for the November general election, including forging cards for nursing home residents, U.S. Attorney Catherine Hanaway said Monday. Humphrey worked for the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) and the Missouri Progressive Vote Coalition, not-for-profit organizations that conducted voter registration drives.

ACORN can try to spin this all they want and even side-step some of the issues. But this kind of fraud keeps coming up again and again and again in the ACORN circles.

It's time to defund ACORN and get back to a real democratic process.

You can access the complete article on-line here:

ACORN Voter Registration Recruiter Charged With Voter Registration Fraud
Patrick M. O'Connell
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
January 5, 2009

Al Franken Lawyered Up And Ready To Steal Minnesota Senate Seat

This is going to be the most closely watched recount in the history of the United States. And it is starting to look like the most blatent attempt to steal an election ever made by either party. Of course, I am referring to Al Franken's Democrats.

He is all lawyered up and ready to steal the Minnesota Senate Seat by getting disqualified votes counted.

According to the Wall Street Journal:

[W]ho needs to worry about votes discovered in a car when the Franken campaign is now suing in court to steal the election? Minnesota this week began its official statewide recount, and Mr. Franken isn't hanging on the outcome. Instead, he's trying to conjure up enough other, previously disqualified, ballots to overturn Mr. Coleman's 215-vote lead. The Democrat needs to invent votes because he knows it will be tough to win a normal recount. Minnesota uses optical scanning machines, which are far more accurate than the punchcard paper ballots of the 2000 Florida recount. Prior recounts in Minnesota have resulted in few vote changes. So off to court he goes, with Mr. Franken demanding that the state canvassing board delay certifying the initial election results. His campaign claims that absentee votes may have been wrongly rejected by election judges. Team Franken filed a lawsuit in Ramsey County (the state's second largest, and an area Mr. Franken won decisively) demanding a list of these absentee voters, so that the Democrat can contact them, get them to declare their ex post facto preference, and, presto, he wins.

How many legitimate votes are going to be negated because of legal chicanery like this? One negated vote will be one too many.

The gubernatorial race in Washington State back in 2004 set a very bad precedent when the Democrats kept going back to the courts until enough votes had been "found" for Gregoire to win. The Minnesota Senate election is starting to look eerily similar and you can bet that once the Democrats have perfected this little scheme for stealing elections, it will happen alot more often on a much larger scale.

You can access the complete article on-line here:

Al Franken's Minnesota
Wall Street Journal Review & Outlook
November 21, 2008

Dems Still Trying To Steal Senate Seat In Minnesota

Didn't I say it would end up just like Washington State in 2004? That is how predictable leftists are. They will always go back to the same, shady, underhanded strategies that their party masters indoctrinated them with.

What happened in Washington State is now happening in Minnesota.

From The Hill:

Democrat Al Franken’s (Minn.) campaign filed a brief with Minnesota’s Board of Canvassers Monday seeking to have the organization in charge of certifying the election include some disqualified provisional and absentee ballots in the vote totals. “There are, of course, legitimate reasons to reject absentee ballots,” said Franken spokesman Andy Barr in a conference call with reporters. “But it is clear that there are some absentee ballots that have been rejected in error. Those votes should be counted.” The Franken campaign said they expected their campaign and the Coleman campaign to have an opportunity to present arguments before the board at 1 p.m. tomorrow, but opened the door to a federal challenge to the election results should the board decide against them. Barr refused to give an exact estimate of how many previously excluded ballots may be added to the tally, but said he believed it to be in the “hundreds.”

Isn't it amazing how they keep "finding" votes for Al Franken? I wonder how many of those ballots were from peopl registered by ACORN.

Washington State all over again. I'll bet they will soon starting wanting to count votes from dead.

Franken Wants Disqualified Ballots To Count
The Hill
November 17, 2008

Mischief In Minnesota: Dems Still Working To Steal Senate Seat

The Op-Ed Board at the Wall Street Journal is now looking into the recount oddities going on in the Senate race up in Minnesota. There are too many strange things happening for anyone to look at it and not think anything of it. Given that the Minnesota Secretary of State Mark Ritchie is a partisan Democrat and has ties to the fraud-laden voter registration group ACORN, alot of what has been happening up there simply cannot be chalked up to "oversights" and "mistakes."

From the WSJ:

The vanishing Coleman vote came during a week in which election officials are obliged to double-check their initial results. Minnesota is required to do these audits, and it isn't unusual for officials to report that they transposed a number here or there. In a normal audit, these mistakes could be expected to cut both ways. Instead, nearly every "fix" has gone for Mr. Franken, in some cases under strange circumstances. For example, there was Friday night's announcement by Minneapolis's director of elections that she'd forgotten to count 32 absentee ballots in her car. The Coleman campaign scrambled to get a county judge to halt the counting of these absentees, since it was impossible to prove their integrity 72 hours after the polls closed. The judge refused on grounds that she lacked jurisdiction. Up in Two Harbors, another liberal outpost, Mr. Franken picked up an additional 246 votes. In Partridge Township, he racked up another 100. Election officials in both places claim they initially miscommunicated the numbers. Odd, because in the Two Harbors precinct, none of the other contests recorded any changes in their vote totals. According to conservative statistician John Lott, Mr. Franken's gains so far are 2.5 times the corrections made for Barack Obama in the state, and nearly three times the gains for Democrats across Minnesota Congressional races. Mr. Lott notes that Mr. Franken's "new" votes equal more than all the changes for all the precincts in the entire state for the Presidential, Congressional and statehouse races combined (482 votes).

Statistically, things are not adding up properly.

And why is Ritchie's involvement making this whole thing even more suspect?

One of Mr. Ritchie's financial supporters during his 2006 run for office was a 527 group called the Secretary of State Project, which was co-founded by James Rucker, who came from MoveOn.org. The group says it is devoted to putting Democrats in jobs where they can "protect elections." Mr. Ritchie is also an ally of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, or Acorn, of fraudulent voter-registration fame. That relationship might explain why prior to the election Mr. Ritchie waved off evidence of thousands of irregularities on Minnesota voter rolls, claiming that accusations of fraud were nothing more than "desperateness" from Republicans.

If the Democrats are allowed to steal this election, it will signal the opening of a very
bad era in American politics in which the people can have their votes cancelled out by the fraud mechanisms being out in place by leftist groups such as MoveOn.org, ACORN and the Secretary of State Project.

I hope everyone is watching.

You can access the complete column on-line here:

Mischief In Minnesota?
The Wall Street Journal
November 12, 2008

Will The Dems Steal The Senate Race In Minnesota?

It is starting to look like the Gubernatorial race in Washington State back in 2004. Remember that? The Dems kept taking the election results back to court until enough votes were "found" in order to give the Democrats the win. Dino Rossi was the declared winner until the third and final recount declared Christine Gregoire the winner. During the lawsuits of the recount prcess, the Dems were "finding" new votes everywhere, many of them questionable at best, but were allowed by Democrat-appointed judges who were overseeing the case.

Now, it looks like Al Franken and the Dems are going to do the same thing in Minnesota where Norm Coleman has apparently won the vote, but the recounts are starting to look eerily similar to the Washington State election in 2004.

Matthew Vadum at the American Spectator has some good information on how the Dems might pull off another Gregoire. It turns out that Minnesota Secretary of State Mark Ritchie is a Democrat who has strong ties to ACORN and ACORN happened to have endorsed Al Franken in this election.

Let's meet Mr. Ritchie:



From Matthew's column:

Minnesota's secretary of state isn't a Democrat by happenstance. Ritchie, who defeated two-term incumbent Republican Mary Kiffmeyer in 2006, received an endorsement and financial assistance for his run from a below-the-radar non-federal "527" group called the Secretary of State Project. The entity can accept unlimited financial contributions and doesn't have to disclose them publicly until well after the election. The founders of the Secretary of State Project, which claims to advance "election protection" but only backs Democrats, religiously believe that right-leaning secretaries of state helped the GOP steal the presidential elections in Florida in 2000 (Katherine Harris) and in Ohio in 2004 (Ken Blackwell).

That already looks sinister enough. But it goes even deeper:

In the election on Tuesday, Ritchie said his office "received no reports whatsoever of fraudulent voting occurring," but most news reports omitted the fact that a conservative watchdog group called Minnesota Majority repeatedly urged Ritchie to clean up the state's voter data. The group urged "a thorough review and verification of all voter registration records." Minnesota Majority claimed last month that there were thousands of irregularities in voter lists, including 261,000 duplicative registrations and 63,000 voters listing an address that the post office reported was "non-deliverable." Ritchie was dismissive.

Of course he was dismissive. Would a Democrat actually look into voter fraud if such fraud seemed like it was going to help a Democrat win an election? Not in this lifetime. Look at how Gregoire was handed the Governorship of Washington State by Democrat-appointed judges who allowed very questionalble votes to be counted. Ritchie and Franken are probably looking at the very same plan right now.

And the media isn't being completely forthcoming with the story either:

Most media reports also leave out the fact that Ritchie has extensive ties to the controversial in-your-face direct action group, ACORN (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now), whose employees have been implicated in electoral fraud time and time again. In 2006, the Minnesota ACORN Political Action Committee endorsed Ritchie and donated to his campaign. According to the Minnesota Campaign Finance and Public Disclosure Board, contributors to Ritchie's campaign included liberal philanthropists George Soros, Drummond Pike, and Deborah Rappaport, along with veteran community organizer Heather Booth, a Saul Alinsky disciple who co-founded the Midwest Academy, a radical ACORN clone. One article on Ritchie's 2006 campaign website brags about the fine work ACORN did in Florida to pass a constitutional amendment to raise that state's minimum wage.

And the parting shot, that we should all take heed of:

As the politically astute Joseph Stalin once remarked, "The people who cast the votes decide nothing. The people who count the votes decide everything."

You can access the complete article on-line here:

SOS In Minnesota
Matthew Vadum
The American Spectator
November 7, 2008

UPDATE: Apparently, Mr. Ritchie "found" another hundred votes for Franken. If he "finds" 300 more, he will declare Franken the winner.

CNN's Campbell Brown On the Double Standard Being Applied To Sarah Palin And The New York Times Won't Name ACORN

Every now and then, even the leftist news organizations allow some nuggets of truth to slip through. I'm certain the producers at CNN are not thrilled with this, but Campbell Brown had something to say about all the attention that Sarah Palin's wardrobe was getting.

The transcript from Wednesday's Election Center:

CAMPBELL BROWN: ...[F]irst, as we do every night, we’re cutting through the bull -- a lot of sniping and a lot of stories today about Sarah Palin’s clothes. Politico.com reports that the Republican National Committee spent more than $150,000 on clothes, hair, and makeup for Palin on the campaign trail. Now, these are not your tax dollars. This is money given by Republican donors to the RNC. But the report questions whether it's legal to use campaign cash for quote,’personal use.’ My issue: there is an incredible double standard here, and we're ignoring a very simple reality. Women are judged based on their appearance far, far more than men. This is a statement of fact. There has been plenty of talk and plenty written about Sarah Palin’s jackets, her hair, her looks. Sound familiar? There was plenty of talk and plenty written about Hillary Clinton’s looks, hair, pantsuits. Compare that to the attention given to Barack Obama’s $1,500 suits or John McCain’s $520 Ferragamo shoes. There is no comparison. Women get scrutinized based on appearance far more than men, and look, I speak from experience here. When I wear a bad outfit on the air, I get viewer e-mail complaining about it, a lot of e-mail, seriously. When Wolf Blitzer wears a not-so-great tie, how much e-mail do you think he gets? My point is, for women, unfortunately, appearance is part of the job. If Wolf or Anderson shows up on the air without makeup, do you think you would even notice? I show up on the air without makeup, trust me, you’ll notice. This doesn't just apply to TV. All women in the public eye deal with this issue, and it’s for this reason that I think the RNC should help Palin pay for hair, clothes, and makeup. It is part of the job. Now, you may think that’s an awful lot of money to spend on clothes, hair, and makeup, or you may complain, as some have, it’s hypocritical to sell yourself as a small-town hockey mom when you’re wearing designer clothes. That's fine. Just don't ignore the fact that there is a double standard here and personally, I think, in this campaign, with so much at stake, this is a peripheral issue. I myself have raised plenty of questions about Sarah Palin, much to the annoyance of the McCain campaign. But those questions have been about her qualifications and experience, never her appearance. Let’s keep the focus on what really matters here.

This is absolutely true. I have never seen a man running for public office put under the scrutiny that Sarah Palin has been put under simply because she is a woman.

CNN’s Campbell Brown Rips ‘Double Standard’ on Palin Clothing Issue
Matthew Balan
NewsBusters.org
October 23, 2008

---

And how about the New York Times? They can't even bring themselves to name the voter-fraud group ACORN in the headline of a story about voter fraud.

From Ed Laskey at the American Thinker:

So now the Times has to own up to the fact that its dismissive attitude towards criticism of ACORN was wrong. Why does The Times refer to a "Group"; by now, its readers are surely familiar with the "group's" name: ACORN. Will the Times own up to the fact that it was also wrong regarding the extent of the ties between Barack Obama and ACORN, which it also dismissed as so much piffle? The fact that the campaign funneled over $800,000 dollars to a corrupt group that has engaged in massive voter fraud, that illegally used get out the vote efforts for partisan purposes, that Barack Obama had ACORN as a client, that Barack Obama trained ACORN (though his campaign peddled the deceptive line that he was not ever a "hired" as a trainer. True-he thought so highly of the group he trained them for free).

Lasky also notes that nearly one in three registrations by ACORN were outright frauds and asks why anyone would not worry about it.

You can access the complete column on-line here:

New York Times Can't Bring Itself To Name ACORN In Its Headline On Voter Fraud Story
Ed Lasky
American Thinker
October 24, 2008

ACORN Tries To Register Mickey Mouse In Florida

ACORN has got to be the biggest news story of the decade and Old Media outlets (ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, Washington Post and New York Times) are completely ignoring it. I say "ignoring" because the information is out there and everybody knows it's happening. But, because of the bad press it would give to the Democrats and Barack Obama, the news outlets won't touch it.

This is from the St. Petersburg Times:

Mickey Mouse tried to register to vote in Florida this summer. Orange County elections officials rejected his application, which was stamped with the logo of the nonprofit group ACORN. ... Nationwide, ACORN is a favorite GOP target for allegations of voter registration fraud this year. That's not new. Similar complaints followed the 2004 elections. A criminal investigation in Florida found no evidence of fraud. ACORN even has a cameo role in the scandal over the 2006 firings of several U.S. attorneys by the Bush Justice Department. ... Brevard County elections officials have turned over 23 suspect registrations from ACORN to prosecutors. The state Division of Elections has received two ACORN-related complaints, in Orange and Broward counties. ACORN wasn't active in the Tampa Bay area. Last week, however, Pinellas County elections officials gave local prosecutors 35 questionable registrations from another group, Work for Progress. The GOP accuses ACORN of registration fraud all over the country. In Las Vegas, authorities said the group's petitions included the names of the starting lineup of the Dallas Cowboys. "This is part of a widespread and systemic effort … to undermine the election process," says Republican National Committee chief counsel Sean Cairncross, who describes ACORN as a "quasicriminal organization."

If you aren't paying attention, you should start doing so. Bogus voter registrations for names like "Mickey Mouse" are easy to spot. But what if bogus voter registrations had names like "William Jackson," "Jennifer Hanson," or "Robert Hopkins?" (I randomly made up these names. My apologies to anyone who actually has them.) They wouldn't be so easy to detect. As such, it would become possible for one person to cast more than one vote.

We need to vigilant about this stuff. We need a President who will stand against voter fraud. Right now, Barack Obama doesn't stand against it. He simply complains about people rightfully linking him to ACORN.

You can access the complete column on-line here:

Vote Drives Defended, Despite Fake Names
Richard Danielson
St. Petersburg Times
October 14, 2008

Even More ACORN Voter Fraud

Barack Obama must have been smiling ear to ear ... until the investigations began and the exposition of ACORN got underway. Even his website about "fighting the smears" had to be modified to try and put distance between him and the vote fraud group that he supports and who is endorsing him.

Check out the following screen shots. Here is what the original read:



And here is how they doctored it:



Notice the difference? the first image says he "never worked" for ACORN and the second says that he was "never hired." What are they trying to hide? Why the cover-up?

Maybe because of this:



Seems pretty silly for the Obama to go around trying to deny that Obama had any involvement with ACORN.

But here are some of ACORN's latest antics. From WNBC in New York:

A Cleveland teenager who claims he registered to vote 73 times over a five-month period has set of alarm bells among election officials in Ohio's most populous county. The bipartisan Cuyahoga County Board of Elections in Cleveland voted unanimously Monday to ask Prosecutor Bill Mason to investigate multiple registrations by four people, including 19-year-old Freddie Johnson. All four said they signed forms at the behest of a community organizing group, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform, known as ACORN. Johnson said he was trying to help paid ACORN solicitors collect signed registrations. He said he has not voted, and said he filled out the cards because he was given cigarettes and about $20.

Thus, you can see why the Obama camp wants to lie their way out of the ACORN connection.

Check this out too:

Thousands of voter registration cards are in the middle of a national investigation. Indiana Secretary of State Todd Rokita says there's significance evidence that voter registration recruiting group ACORN submitted fraudulent voter registration cards. ... "They've made up names before turning them in. They've used the names of people who have unfortunately been deceased or in a less fradulent fashion turned in ilegible voter registration or incomplete ones," said Indiana Secretary of State Todd Rokita. We caught Indiana Secretary of State and Chief Elections Officer Todd Rokita at a charity event Saturday night. He says those ineligible registration cards have shown up across the country including some in Lake and St. Joseph County. "I don't care who you vote for. I just want a 18 year old that's a United States citizen to vote, but I just want them to vote once," said Rokita. ... "The election will go on. We intend to have a fair and accurate election and the fact of the matter is it looks like we caught this nefarious action," said Rokita.

Yep. Obama has really stepped into this one. It's too bad Old Media isn't reporting on these things they way they should be.

You can access the complete articles on-line here:

Teenager: I Registered To Vote 73 Times
WNBC Channel 4
October 13, 2008

Voter Registration Fraud Under Investigation
Fox28.com
October 11, 2008

ACORN Voter Fraud Is Widespread

The group that is stumping for Barack Obama and whom Barack Obama taught for, worked for and represented, has a long line of voter fraud behind it. It's no wonder the Obama campaign has resorted to lying about Obama's relationship with this law-breaking group.

For those of you who would like to see the research:

1 Voter, 72 Registrations: 'ACORN Paid Me In Cash & Cigs'
Jeane MacIntosh
New York Post
October 10, 2008

Missouri Officials Suspect Fake Voter Registration
Bill Draper
Associated Press
October 8, 2008

Local 2 Investigates Dead Voters
KPRC Local
October 8, 2008

ACORN Office In Vegas Raided In Voter-Fraud Probe
Oskar Garcia
Associated Press Writer
October 7, 2008

More Milwaukee Voter Fraud... Name That Party?
Warner Todd Huston
NewsBusters
September 1, 2008

Voter Registration Fraud In Florida
Judicial Watch Blog
September 29, 2008

ACORN Fraud in New Mexico Again
Clarice Feldman
American Thinker
September 17, 2008

More ACORN Fraud (What Else Is New?)
Clarice Feldman
American Thinker
September 14, 2008

Another Voter Fraud Investigation For ACORN
Patrick Casey
American Thinker
August 28, 2008

Missing Headlines: Leftwing Voter Fraud Guilty Plea
Ed Lasky
The American Thinker
October 31, 2007

A Voter Named Abortion Alternative Registered In Missouri
Clarice Feldman
The American Thinker
November 5, 2006


Fraud Alleged In St. Louis Voter Sign-Up
Jeff Douglas
Associated Press Writer
October 11, 2006

ACORN Voter Fraud Uncovered In Michigan And Former Prison Camp Commander Endorses John McCain

Here's a surprise. ACORN, the leftist organization that is dedicated to "reform" has been submitting fraudulent voter registration forms to municipal clerks all across Michigan.

Actually, that comes as no surprise since ACORN was known to actively engage in voter fraud in the 2004 elections.

From the Detroit Free Press:

The majority of the problem applications are coming from the group ACORN, Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, which has a large voter registration program among its many social service programs. ACORN's Michigan branch, based in Detroit, has enrolled 200,000 voters statewide in recent months, mostly with the use of paid, part-time employees. "There appears to be a sizeable number of duplicate and fraudulent applications," said Kelly Chesney, spokeswoman for the Michigan Secretary of State's Office. "And it appears to be widespread." Chesney said her office has had discussions with ACORN officials after local clerks reported the questionable applications to the state. Chesney said some of the applications are duplicates and some appear to be names that have been made up. The Secretary of State's Office has turned over several of the applications to the U.S. Attorney's Office.

Back in 2004, one ACORN worker submitted voter registration forms with names like Donald Duck, Mickey Mouse and Clark Kent.

You can access the complete article on-line here:

Bad Voter Applications Found
L.L. Brasier
Free Press Staff Writer
September 14, 2008

---

This election just keeps getting more and more curious. The London Telegraph is reporting that Tran Trong Duyet, the commandant of the Hao Lo prison in Hanoi from 1968 to 1973 is endorsing John McCain for President of the United States.

An excerpt:

[Duyet] recalls Mr McCain "as a typical child of a traditional military family. He was conservative and faithful to his country's policy of the Vietnam war". "In a talk between men we shared many things about girls and love and so on," said Mr Duyet, who claims Mr McCain helped teach him English. "I think John McCain is a very smart man." In his run for the presidency, Mr McCain's years as a PoW are constantly invoked for the courage he showed under repeated torture, never giving the Vietnamese anything they could use in their propaganda. ... What remains of the prison is now a museum, where Mr McCain's old flight suit is on display. There is also a monument to his capture on the bank of the Hanoi lake where he crash landed. But like many Vietnamese, Mr Duyet is grateful to Mr McCain for the role he played in the 1990s - restoring trading and political relations between the countries. "I would like to say that if John McCain is elected president I hope he will further improve the relationship between Vietnam and the United States," said Mr Duyet. "And as a friend I want to wish him good health and good luck in the presidential election," he added. Then he blurted out "My friend!" in English, the language he says Mr McCain helped teach him, which he has almost totally forgotten.

As I said, very curious.

You can access the complete article on-line here:

John McCain Endorsed By His Vietnamese Jailer
Thomas Bell
London Telegraph
September 15, 2008

Supreme Court Rules In Favor Of Voter IDs

Now, really. Everyone must have known exactly how this one was going to turn out, even before the arguments were written in draft. Not requiring a photo ID before voting is tantamount to inviting massive voter fraud. Without such a check on the process, who is to say that one voter couldn't go and vote at five or more polling places?

Clearly, the only people that wanted to strike down voter ID laws were those who had designs on using such a legal loophole to allow a single voter to vote multiple times. "Vote early and vote often" was becoming the new leftist battle-cry.

But the U.S. Supreme Court has effectively put an end to the multiple-vote-casting-single-voter scheme. From MSNBC:

The Supreme Court ruled Monday that states can require voters to produce photo identification without violating their constitutional rights, validating Republican-inspired voter ID laws. In a splintered 6-3 ruling, the court upheld Indiana's strict photo ID requirement, which Democrats and civil rights groups said would deter poor, older and minority voters from casting ballots. Its backers said it was needed to prevent fraud. It was the most important voting rights case since the Bush v. Gore dispute that sealed the 2000 election for George W. Bush. But the voter ID ruling lacked the conservative-liberal split that marked the 2000 case. The law "is amply justified by the valid interest in protecting 'the integrity and reliability of the electoral process,'" Justice John Paul Stevens said in an opinion that was joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and Anthony Kennedy. Stevens was a dissenter in Bush v. Gore in 2000. Justices Samuel Alito, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas also agreed with the outcome, but wrote separately.

The three votes against? Well, as Gomer Pyle would say, "Suprise! Suprise! Suprise!" Those three votes came from the three most liberals justices on the Court. Care to guess what they were thinking when they tried unsuccessfully to strike down a law aimed at curbing voter fraud?

More:

Stevens said the partisan divide in Indiana, as well as elsewhere, was noteworthy. But he said that preventing fraud and inspiring voter confidence were legitimate goals of the law, regardless of who backed or opposed it. Indiana provides IDs free of charge to the poor and allows voters who lack photo ID to cast a provisional ballot and then show up within 10 days at their county courthouse to produce identification or otherwise attest to their identity.

You get all that? "Indiana provides IDs free of charge." Clearly, there is no conspiracy to keep the poor from voting. But without a voter ID law, it is clear what kind of conspiracy could crop up.

You can access the complete article on-line here:

Supreme Court Upholds Voter ID Law
Associated Press via MSNBC.com
April 28, 2008