Posted by
Toddy Littman on Thursday, February 05, 2009 6:00:00 PM
Be
careful what you believe solely by looking for names, I mean, the
House, after being caught the first time referring to "community
organizers" and "homeowner education" in the first iteration of the 700
billion dollar bailout, to then have the Senate by name
("ACORN")attempt to allocate 20 billion dollars to the Housing arm of
ACORN which is meant to help new home owners, does not help anyone
believe in these bills being upfront and honest in their statements of
allocations.
Of course there is a sensitivity to allocating
unheard of sums as it is, this is further exacerbated by doing so to
non profit organizations.
In regard to Obama's former clients
this is a particularly sensitive area. Rezko is a well documented slum
lord that took government funds to "refurbish" buildings but did little
refurbishing.
ACORN who also had Barack Obama as their lawyer,
according to an article written by one of ACORN's founders and
published in Social Policy Magazine. Interestingly, once there was
great public interest shown for the article it was made available only
to registered users. The article can be found in volume 34 I believe
and is available at www.socialpolicy.org.
The lawsuit, that
then lawyer Barack Obama brought, was to assure loans would be given to
people at no interest, who cannot pay them back, and for no money down,
on the grounds it's a civil rights violation if the bank doesn't make
the loan.
You can see how the ACORN lawsuit results in great
sensitivity to anything even slightly rewarding such groups that hired
Obama to carry out such a lawsuit that created loans that are worthless
and eventually never saw a penny of return on the money lent. It is
this appearance of hand out to ACORN by organizational identification
that is in the current bill and which more than suggests a reference to
ACORN as a recipient of up to 4.2 billion dollars from the stimulus
plan which money would provide no jobs when going to a non-profit as
these operate almost entirely on the basis of volunteers.
The
700 billion TARP Bailout, the House Bill (the original of which has
been removed from govtrack) was overt in referring to "Community
Oranizing" and how 65% of 20% of the funds from TARP loan payback is
put into a trust and would go to this particular community organizing
function, distributed to non profit groups that assist with housing
issues, again describing ACORN, at least according to their historic
activity and role in communities. That provision was stricken, and then
a new provision surfaced once the Senate picked it up which overtly
stated "to provide $20 billion to the Association of Community
Organizers for Reform Now," which was quickly stricken based on
republican objections because ACORN is not a financial institution with
troubled assets as the TARP was meant to be used.
With the
stimulus bill it appears the democrats learned their "language" lesson
and the Republicans found the hole that can be used to create a virtual
slush fund for these non-profit groups whose business organization does
not provide much, if any, economic stimulus.
Here is the
language in the current stimulus that eludes to ACORN by identification
of the organization in an area of activity that ACORN's Homeowner
Education Group, the principle that funds the ACORN political group,
has done historically:
"For a further additional amount for
‘Community Development Fund,’ $4,190,000,000, to be used for
neighborhood stabilization activities related to emergency assistance
for the redevelopment of abandoned and foreclosed homes as authorized
under division B, title III of the Housing and Economic Recovery Act of
2008 (Public Law 110–289), of which—
“(1) not less than
$3,440,000,000 shall be allocated by a competition for which eligible
entities shall be States, units of general local government, and
nonprofit entities or consortia of nonprofit entities[.]”
“(2)
up to $750,000,000 shall be awarded by competition to nonprofit
entities or consortia of nonprofit entities to provide community
stabilization assistance […]”
The use of "consortia of nonprofit
entities" is not a reference to many non profit entities. There are few
"consortia of nonprofit entities" such as ACORN, and even fewer still
that are involved in "stabilization activities related to emergency
assistance for the redevelopment of abandoned and foreclosed homes" and
this is why there is this certainty this language is specifically to
assure ACORN an opportunity at these funds that is less scrutinized
than the current access they have to other smaller pools of funds at
the state and local level that are reimbursed by the federal
government. This would streamline the process specifically for entities
meeting that "consortia of non profits" identification so they can get
their hands on a larger pool of fund without the State and local
governments as middlemen.
This access isn't bad, in and of
itself, but, a consortia of non profits will suck up the whole 4.2
billion before other non profits will have a chance to even apply for
them, especially one that favor has been shown to by the democrats in
Congress, FannieMae, FreddieMac, and even George Bush (See below.). And
this is besides the point of the money providing little if any economic
stimulus.
Also understand that ACORN did receive 17 million
dollars under George Bush just before he left office and irrespective
of the House Minority leader, Boehner asking him to stop all funding of
ACORN until the disposition of the the voter fraud cases pending in 11
states is final.
It appears to me that if there hadn't been an
overt attempt by Senate democrats to give 20 billion to ACORN in the
700 billion bailout after the republicans caught the attempt to give
65% of 20% of the Tarp funds to ACORN in the original House Bailout
Bill that failed, the republicans wouldn't be scrutinizing so strongly
to find the one means in the law by which ACORN can appear to be
receiving a special consideration by reference as "a consortia of non
profit organizations" which is just to obvious a convenient special
provision due to it being in the exact area of public funding that
ACORN has pursued in their history of community activism.
Now I
can understand not even thinking this is happening, but, I submit that
if you pull out your vehicle code and look up almost any portion after
the first 100 codes, you'll see that politicians are not direct, even
those professing "change." They craft laws to fulfill personal and
other special interests without appearing to do so as their daily job.
To
emphasize the special interest connection that lawmakers are far more
aware of than the general public, President Obama maintained that he
had a very minimal relationship with ACORN throughout his campaign. Yet
the Social Policy Magazine article I mentioned above, the one by one of
the founders of ACORN, with photographs as well, entirely refutes and
states otherwise.
This video, doesn't help either:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?...
I
don't blame you if you can't see it, they are politicians writing these
laws, lawyers studied in "the art of rhetoric" also knows as bullsh**.
So I can understand entirely any reservations you have to seeing the
connections and apologize for my not being better able to articulate
these so you can see them.