ACORN Gets Around

Squirreling up voters for the fall election, "community organizing", Obama's old boss ACORN gets around. In case you missed the NY Times article, there's trouble in the socialist non-profit paradise--sounds familiar--your money is my money.) Embezzlement bigtime (emphasis mine):

Two prominent national nonprofit groups are reeling from public disclosures that large sums of money were misappropriated in unrelated incidents by an employee and a former employee.

The groups, Acorn, one of the country’s largest community organizing groups, and the Points of Light Institute, which works to encourage civic activism and volunteering, have dealt with the problems in very different ways.

Acorn chose to treat the embezzlement of nearly $1 million eight years ago as an internal matter and did not even notify its board.

Gee, guess a million here or there to ACORN is just peanuts. In contrast, the other organization dealt with their scandal in a month. The culprit--a brother of ACORN's founder. ACORN 's execs did nothing at the time, not even informing all of their board--describing it as a judgment call. And the guy has been on the payroll all this time, dumped only a month ago!!! And this is Barack Obama's pet group, you might say they gave him his start in politics, and he wants to return the favor.

Oh, and get this--it's all the Righties' fault. (Where have we heard this before?):

Wade Rathke said the organization had signed a restitution agreement with his brother in which his family agreed to repay the amount embezzled in exchange for confidentiality.

Wade Rathke stepped down as Acorn’s chief organizer on June 2, the same day his brother left, but he remains chief organizer for Acorn International L.L.C.

He said the decision to keep the matter secret was not made to protect his brother but because word of the embezzlement would have put a “weapon” into the hands of enemies of Acorn, a liberal group that is a frequent target of conservatives who object to its often strident advocacy on behalf of low- and moderate-income families and workers.

And they are using our money.

Michelle Malkin's ACORN Watch of the week. They're busy in Oakland. (not to be confused with the Acorn gang and Operation Nutcracker.) Denver. Las Vegas. Dauphin County, Pennsylvania.

NY Post:

ACORN has been implicated in similar schemes in 14 other states - including Ohio, where a worker traded crack cocaine for fraudulent registration.

The Orlando Sentinal:

County elections supervisors said the spike in Democratic registration was partly because of earlier-than-usual registration drives by third-party groups such as the League of Women Voters and ACORN, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, which targets black and Hispanic voters. The groups were trying to get ahead of a 2007 law that dramatically increases fines on third-party groups that don't turn in registration applications within 10 days.

The law has yet to take effect because the League and two labor unions filed suit to block it, arguing it discriminates against minorities who rely more heavily than whites on third-party organizations to register to vote. A ruling is expected soon.

Indiana. (Remember Lake County?) Fannie Mae pays off ACORN?! Heritage:

For years, conservatives have been critical of how Fannie, and Freddie Mac, have leveraged their government-sponsored advantages (including exemptions from state and federal taxes, lower capital requirements, and the ability to borrow at rates well below those paid by private companies), to create a co-monopoly in the housing finance sector. When Fannie’s accounting scandal came to light in 2004, conservatives pushed hard for reforms to phase out Fannie and Freddie.

Led by former Walter Mondale and Barack Obama campaign adviser James Johnson, Fannie and Freddie pushed back hard, raising millions of dollars for members of the relevant oversight committees and opening up “Partnership Offices” that funneled money into various housing projects in districts of key members of Congress.

Fannie also bought off activist groups such as the corrupt Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), which has been indicted, multiple times across the country, for vote fraud (Obama worked closely with ACORN as a street organizer in Chicago). Fannie’s lobbying efforts paid off as liberal politicians such as Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Rep. William Clay (D-Mo.) worked to kill any real reform of Freddie and Fannie.

John Fund, "Obama's Liberal Shock Troops", ACORN among them:

Acorn's political arm has endorsed Mr. Obama while its "voter education" arm has pledged to spend $35 million to register people this fall -- despite a history of vote fraud scandals that have led to guilty pleas by many Acorn employees.

How about suing ACORN, states, hmm? I feel the itch to be litigious. For a change.