From the Associated Press:

WASHINGTON (AP) – The House voted Thursday to deny all federal funds for ACORN in a GOP-led strike against the scandal-tainted community organizing group that comes just three days after the Senate took similar action. “ACORN has violated serious federal laws, and today the House voted to ensure that taxpayer dollars would no longer be used to fund this corrupt organization,” said second-ranked House Republican Eric Cantor of Virginia.

The vote, on a provision attached to a student aid bill, was 345-75, with Democrats supplying all the “no” votes.

Vote: 345 to 75.

Read the full article here.

Complete results here.

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You gotta hand it to most politicians: only seven Senators stuck by ACORN and the White House is doing its best to bail on the group caught on tape helping James O’Keefe and Hannah Giles in their (thankfully fake) effort to set up prostitution rings involving children.

Pols know when to let a disaster occur without getting themselves mussed. But not so with the hard-charging, uber-wealthy lefty funder who has been enabling ACORN’s seedy action for decades. Drummond Pike, longtime head of the Tides funding mechanism, has come out swinging at Fox News for attacking ACORN. In fact, he goes so far as to claim:

I wonder how many nonprofit organizations — even big, well-heeled ones like the Nature Conservancy or the Red Cross — could withstand the kind of media assault and unscrupulous tactics deployed by Fox? I doubt many could.

One wonders what Mr. Pike knows about the Red Cross that we do not. We have generally been under the impression they work to alleviate suffering, rather than foster it.

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We haven’t heard the last of Van Jones.

Arianna Huffington was kind enough to allow her good friend who happens to have been a former campaign manager from her California gubernatorial run to post his preliminary reflections on being unceremoniously booted from the Obama administration on the Huffington Post.

It’s the least she could do.

Jones is President Obama’s former green jobs czar.

He believes the Bush administration caused the 9/11 terrorist attacks to happen. He also denounced the United States on Sept. 12, 2001 blaming America for the atrocities the day before. He also mourned the deaths of the people killed in the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center but only the ones who were working class.

In what will no doubt find its way into the memoirs he might be contemplating writing, Jones compares himself to Winston Churchill, which is odd for many reasons but especially because of the apparent contempt that President Obama holds for the late great British prime minister.

With all the modesty one has come to expect from a community organizer, Jones writes

Of course, some supporters actually think I will be more effective on the “outside.” Maybe so. But those ideas always remind me of that old canard about Winston Churchill. After he lost a hard-fought election, a friend told him: “Winston, this really is just a blessing in disguise.” Churchill quipped: “Damned good disguise.” I can certainly relate to that sentiment right now. [emoticon in original]

He likens himself to the wrong Churchill.

Van Jones is more like Ward Churchill.

When ACORN was announced as a national partner with the Census Bureau, I had grave concerns that the accuracy and integrity of the 2010 census would be jeopardized.

One of ACORN’s responsibilities would have been to recruit census workers.  Given ACORN’s propensity for falsifying government documents, it seemed illogical that their employees would now be handling census forms.  The Census Bureau was, in effect, inviting fraud in the 2010 census.

As the Ranking Republican on the Census Oversight Subcommittee, I privately encouraged the Bureau to reconsider.  Subsequently, the Bureau and I engaged in a confrontational public dispute over their relationship with ACORN.

The Bureau would eventually listen to reason and agreed that ACORN could not be trusted to recruit census workers, but they continued to defend their partnership with this criminal enterprise.  When the despicable conduct of ACORN was caught on tape and broadcast on BigGoverment.com, the Bureau officially got out of the business of apologizing for ACORN.

New Census Bureau Director Robert Groves deserves our respect for doing the right thing.  Immediately following his confirmation, Director Groves pledged to me that he would seriously review ACORN’s partnership status.  It is clear to me that Director Groves had ACORN on a short leash. (more…)

As Congressional leaders debate omnibus health insurance reform proposals, American consumers face the threat of dramatic changes to health care delivery that 100% misses the point. The entire debate is a quintessential study in “lipstick” on a pig.

The “pig” is the federal government intrusion into health insurance at all.   Let me restate, the health care marketplace is so fouled up BECAUSE of government involvement, not because of too little government involvement.

Americans are frustrated and the tea partiers are an expression of this because people see both parties as totally tone deaf, failing to limit the central role of the federal government.  So while the statists want to expand the role of government into a total single-payer plan, the rudderless GOP proposes a “market-based” government role in which government empowers people.  Huh?

The fact is, there is no more proper Congressional role in health insurance than there is in car, home or life insurance.  Insurance regulation is properly handled at the state level.  So how did we get here?

The fateful machinations happened in the forties, when price and salary controls put in place by an increasingly socialistic government forced businesses to look for creative ways to attract and compensate their employees.  The result, a loophole of sorts where employers could gift their employees with health insurance and deduct the premium as a cost of doing business.   Voila!  Just like that, the camel’s nose was under the tent and the negative ramification have perplexed patients and policy-makers ever since.

(more…)

Big Government has obtained copies of subpoenas issued last month to ACORN by the state of Louisiana. We are working to determine the status of this and other investigations. ACORN operates in 46 states. 45 more of these would move us much further towards full transparency and accountablity.

Louisiana ACORN subpoenas –

Exclusive story here.

Listen to the full unedited audio here:

Part 1:

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Part 2:

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Part 3:

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Full transcript follows:

Full ACORN San Bernadino Transcript –

In my last post, I noted the millions of taxpayer dollars flowing into ACORN’s housing corporation and that at least twice, Democratic administrations have caught ACORN misusing taxpayer money allocated for community work. To understand ACORN’s repeated scams, it’s important to know that the group has again and again been accused of funneling government grants to ACORN’s political and labor activism (in effect using our money to fund their growth).

It didn’t take long after the group’s founding in 1970 to work its way into the radical Left and sign up for government largess. After Jimmy Carter took office, the group used its connections to win a contract worth almost $500,000 to train community volunteers under the VISTA program.

It took virtually no time for the group to show its true colors. The grant was no small thing; the Heritage Foundation concluded, “It appears that the VISTA grant was crucial to the survival of ACORN.” The money may have helped the far-left group, but the results, as you might imagine, were not pleasant:

Under the ACORN/CORAP grant, VISTAs engaged-in blatantly political activity in Arkansas and Missouri, while five VISTAs were active in a labor organizing campaign in New Orleans.

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Far Left mouthpiece Marc Lamont Hill told Bill O’Reilly that Big Government investigative reporters James O’Keefe and Hannah Giles went to “hundreds of ACORN offices” before they were able to catch “low level” ACORN workers for their damning reports on the scandal-plagued organization. When asked how he knew this Hill told O’Reilly that, “They admitted it.”

This is not true.

James O’Keefe and Hannah Giles did not go to “hundreds of ACORN offices” to acquire material for this project. They went to the four offices that were shown in the series of videos. Also, at no time did O’Keefe, Giles or any representative of Big Government give such a statement to the press or to anyone.

The accusations by Marc Lamont Hill are completely false.

Big Government has contacted The O’Reilly Factor and Marc Lamont Hill. We will update this post with any information as it becomes available.

Media coverage of ACORN and that organization’s illegal activities in New York, California and elsewhere has largely ignored one of ACORN’s most successful projects; New York’s Working Families Party (WFP). 

Because of the unique nature of New York State election law, candidates are allowed to be endorsed and appear on the voting machine ballot as the candidate of multiple parties, winning the cumulative total of all votes cast for that candidate on multiple party lines.  Minor parties such as the Conservative, Liberal and Right to Life Party have played significant roles in New York politics.

The Working Families Party is not about working people or families and it isn’t really a party.  The WFP is a wholly owned subsidiary of ACORN.  Bertha Lewis co-chair of the Working Families Party is the Executive Director of New York ACORN.  New York ACORN leader, Steven Kest was the moving force in forming the party and WFP headquarters are located at the same address as ACORN’s national and New York office at 88 Third Avenue in Brooklyn, New York. 

WFP is essentially a money funnel which pays for an aggressive door to door canvas.  Largely funded by unions, the WFP is ACORN’s “political arm” in New York State.  Candidates supported by the Working Families Party and issues supported by ACORN are both advocated on the door steps of target voter homes as they share one major voter canvas. 

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The Senate overwhelmingly approved a legislative amendment Monday that would block ACORN from receiving federal funding. ACORN, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, is the ongoing criminal conspiracy that the mainstream media is suddenly interested in.

In the Monday roll call, only seven senators voted no.

Of the seven pro-ACORN senators, longtime Sen. Bob Casey (D-Pennsylvania) is the most outspoken supporter of ACORN.

Of the group that organizes forcible entry and occupation of homes in order to lead proletarian revolution against capitalism, Casey is shown saying on an ACORN promotional video (just after 5:00):

So for ACORN to step into that breach and say, we in the case of ACORN will step in and try to help families, to be their advocate, to be their voice, is critically important. Because as important as it is here in Washington to pass legislation in the House and the Senate –that’s obviously important– but we cannot do this alone.

CQ’s Bill Pascoe thinks Casey might have just committed political suicide by voting to continue federal funding of ACORN.

As Congress prepares to move forward on financial services regulation, it’s worth taking a step back to look at the proposals for what they really are: behavioral control mechanisms. This is not to say that regulation is inherently bad. A free market can only exist within a framework of rules for competition. And there are certainly some good aspects of the White House plan to reform Wall Street’s rules. But the core measures the president wants passed before the end of the year are simply the expansion of government to dictate terms of action to financial institutions and consumers.

First, the Consumer Financial Protection Agency (CFPA) is an attempt to control the behavior of financial institutions, and what they can or cannot offer. It is an attempt to govern the behavior of individuals who are apparently no longer capable of bearing responsibility for their own actions in choosing financial products. Wright and Zywicki write for FinReg21 that there is a “high likelihood of unintended consequences that will result from [CFPA] actions, including reducing competition and valuable consumer choice.”

Second, derivative regulation reform proposals would make it very expensive and complicated to write unique derivative contracts between firms, with rules designed to push the market towards using more standardized products. Why? Because standard contracts are easier to monitor, easier to control.

Third, the tiered structure for regulating financial institutions will create categories that allow the government to vary its regulatory rules based on the arbitrary perception of risk in the market by the regulators. Washington is looking to control how much risk firms can take, and what kinds of risks.

And fourth, the executive pay rules that passed the House and are now before the Senate Banking Committee, grant the government authority to restrict compensation packages it deems “threatening” to the financial sector. Not only is a grab at more control, this power would allow regulators to intimidate companies into setting pay by its terms without ever having to exercise the power.

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Congress’s official investigation into the financial crisis, the so-called Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, will convene its first meeting today.  Unfortunately, Nancy Pelosi’s handpicked chairman of the commission Phil Angelides, has deep ties to radical left-wing politics, including the Van Jones-connected Apollo Alliance, which he chairs, and ACORN, which is an Apollo member and endorsed and actively supported his gubernatorial campaign.  His selection proves the commission will be a politicized attempt to advance a left-wing agenda through a revisionist history of the financial crisis.  It also assures that ACORN and other community organizers who forced banks to make reckless loans in the name of affordable housing will be let off the hook.

Angelides’s San Francisco-based Apollo Alliance describes itself as a “coalition of labor, business, environmental, and community leaders working to catalyze a clean energy revolution.”  Based on the radical past of some of its key figures, the use of the word revolution is appropriate.  Apollo was conceived of, and presently serves, as a clearing house to align the otherwise disparate interests of environmental groups, labor unions, social justice organizations, and rent-seeking corporations.

Disgraced former White House green jobs czar Van Jones was an Apollo board member, involved with the group from its founding, and was its model for a new type of leader.  Apollo board member John Podesta, who was chairman of Obama’s transition team, already brought Van Jones back to the Center for American Progress, Podesta’s influential think tank where Jones had previously been a senior fellow.  These are Angelides’s friends and ideological peers. (more…)

With 70 miles of stunning beaches and picture-perfect weather all year round, having fun during the summer in San Diego doesn’t require a lot of money.

The city combines old-fashioned Mexican charm with a modern edge. In a city where the sun is always shining, it’s the perfect place to get away for a bit of relaxation or stimulation.

If you’re looking for trendy boutique hotels, an exploding culinary scene, or visiting the local ACORN to get your underage prostitutes smuggled across the Mexican border, you’re in the right place.

~~

ACORN CEO Bertha Lewis has taken on the (daunting) task of defending ACORN in the mainstream media. Her Politico bio is here. **UPDATE** MSNBC videos have been removed from the site. They are a couple days old at this point and we aren’t certain the explanation at this time.

**UPDATE**
TODAY Show vid recovered here:

**This is a Part III of the ACORN San Bernardino exposé.

Alinsky Rule #8: “Keep the pressure on…  with different tactics and actions, and utilize all events of the period for your purpose.”

~

San Bernardino Police Report Tresa Ka –

The ACORN-linked, “public option”-mongering Service Employees International Union has its own black eye to contend with. A former official with SEIU Local 1000 in California was slapped with a 25-year prison sentence for charges of child molestation and making/possessing child pornography. News10 reports a troubling angle:

Jaime Enrique Feliciano, who served as president of Service Employees International Union Local 1000 representing thousands of Sacramento-area state workers, had previous convictions for child molestation and failure to register as a sex offender.

Previous convictions? ACORN and SEIU deserve each other.

ACORN suspends, plans audit, in wake of videos

ACORN, calling the actions of some of its employees “indefensible,” has suspended advising new clients as part of its service programs and is setting up an independent review to see what happened.

ACORN chief executive Bertha Lewis said in a written statement that she was “ordering a halt to any new intakes into ACORN’s service programs until completion of an independent review.”