ACORN’s New York operations are looking forward to a potential new flow of federal dollars, thanks to the New York State Senate and New York Governor Paterson.

Together they applied the Van Jones’ Apollo doctrine to tap into federal stimulus money allocated to New York.

Governor Paterson recently signed into law something called the “Green Jobs – Green New York Act of 2009″. The new law provides for the creation of a massive slush fund of federal stimulus dollars to be set aside for “green jobs”.

Those green jobs include but will not be limited to “Energy Auditors”, certified green contractors, green financing services to help pay for property upgrades, and more.

There are a number of places in the legislation where ACORN, SEIU, and their affiliates stand to gain access to this new green slush fund. Below is but one excerpt which must make them very happy:

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Christians believe God can calm the seas, and Greeks believed Zeus controlled the weather and showered down thunder and lightning in anger. Apparently, now Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas seems to think she too can control the winds and the rains by earmarking over a hundred million of your tax dollars to dubious research at universities in her state, even though the idea was long abandoned by government scientists.

Senator Hutchison, recently named “Porker of the Month”, says she wants to earmark $125 million during this recession to, in her words, force “Mother Nature” to “alter her course.” As Al Gore and President Obama have failed in their quest to control the oceans, Senator Hutchison thinks she can finally get Mother Nature to listen to politicians. Good luck!
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Holley was ordered by a judge to pay a $125 fine and enter “pre-trial intervention”, at the end of which the case will be dismissed. (it is somewhat unlikely that, as the judge noted, Holley was “not familiar with the absentee voting system” or “not educated in this”. I mean, ED of the local party, representative to the convention, Council President, former Chief of Staff to the Deputy leader…) That sure sounds like an admission to the facts to me.

1.  Fox News is not really a legitimate news source because it has a ‘point of view’ and

2.  We encourage all legitimate news networks to stop treating them as if they are legitimate.

Is it just me, or has 2009 been exceptionally rich in the deaths of legendary figures?  In August Ted Kennedy was finally reunited in heaven with Mary Jo Kopechne. In July a much more interesting man, Harry Patch, the last veteran of World War I, died aged 111.

Only a few days after Kennedy expired, Sergei Mikhalkov, the Stalin-loving author of the lyrics to three versions of the Soviet and Russian national anthem also shuffled off this mortal coil. And what about Walter Cronkite, Ed McMahon etc? All of these deaths were recognized as significant breaks with the past, symbolic passings that marked the end of an era, even if the era in question had actually come to a close decades earlier. On October 12th yet another such mega-death was marked in Russia, as Vyacheslav Ivankov- AKA Yaponchik- was buried in Moscow’s Vagankovskoye cemetery. Although his name is less well known than Ted Kennedy’s, Yaponchik’s life and career are highly significant nevertheless, for as the most notorious Russian mobster of the 1990s he was a living (until recently, anyway) symbol of an era of near-total societal collapse, the repercussions of which are still felt globally today.

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Once upon a time, ‘Republican’ Assemblywoman Dede Scozzafava was the front-runner in the special election to replace actual Republican Rep. John McHugh. That was then, the video below is now:

In politics, a good rule-of-thumb is that the candidate calling for more debates is the candidate that is losing. It usually means they are just about out of money and need staged, public events to even hope to get their message out. For a big government liberal like Dede, it figures she would resort to this. It seems noone is buying what she’s selling, so she’s trying to orchestrate her own bailout. That is fairly typical.

What isn’t typical, however, is her campaign’s apparent–and total–lack of competence. Who stages a press conference and fails to control its visuals? City council races in Nebraska have more discipline.

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California has long been the land of fruits and nuts – and now runaway federal courts.

Of course, a long time ago, in a place far, far away, the legislatures of individual States of these United States, had a far greater say in the lives of their citizens.  Indeed, for the first 150 years of our existence, the federal government – the Congress and the Courts – had little to say or do in the lives of Americans – the Civil War excluded.

With the advent of the Democrats’ Big Government New Deal, of course, all of that changed.  The Roosevelt Democrats increased the federal budget tenfold – but not without the considerable help of a very activist Supreme Court.  Recall that Roosevelt threatened to pack the Supreme Court which then proceeded through resignations and reinterpretations to redefine our Constitution.  The result was a Big Government takeover the like of which the Supreme Court originally struck down during Roosevelt’s first term.

It also was the dawning of the age of the activist courts which threatens our Liberties to this very day.  Thomas Jefferson, of course, warned us of this possibility.  According to Jefferson:

The great object of my fear is the federal judiciary.  That body, like Gravity, ever acting, with noiseless foot, & unalarming advance, gaining ground step by step, and holding what it gains, is ingulphing insidiuously the special governments [i.e, the states] into the jaws of that which feeds them.

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While Nancy Pelosi is excited that health care reform is only going to cost us $900 billion over ten years,  I wonder how we are going to get out of the current fiscal mess we’re in. Seriously. The GAO has a new report on how our long term financial situation is going to look like. A short sample:

“The federal budget deficit soared to a record $1.4 trillion in the fiscal year that ended in September, a chasm of red ink unequaled in the postwar era that threatens to complicate the most ambitious goals of the Obama administration, including plans for fresh spending to create jobs and spur economic recovery.

Still, the figure represents a significant improvement over the darkest deficit projections, which had been as much as $400 billion higher earlier this year, when the economy was wallowing in recession. Since then, the outlook has brightened and a government bailout has successfully stabilized the nation’s troubled financial sector. In a report released Friday, Treasury Department officials said the government had spent $132 billion less than expected in August, due primarily to a drop in anticipated spending on the banking bailout.”

You’ve got to love the “the glass is half-full” outlook of the GAO!

And yet, they do show that without social security and Medicare-Medicaid reforms things will get much much worse and fast.

Check out the charts in the report, they will stop you from having kids.

Allegations of continuing corruption continue to mount against the embattled Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN). In the wake of tremendous negative publicity, much of which was featured here at Big Government, and adverse House and Senate votes ACORN has begun laying off dozens of low-level workers and staff across the country.

However, under conditions of strict anonymity, ACORN organizers and staff have complained to the ACORN 8 (www.acorn8.com) that senior management has ordered them to continue to work for ACORN as “volunteers” but for them to apply for unemployment insurance.

In order to legally collect unemployment insurance compensation, the applicant must attest that they are ready, willing and able to work elsewhere to qualify for benefits. This is unemployment insurance fraud. And fraudulently applying for unemployment insurance compensation is a crime.

When these allegations were first brought to the attention of the ACORN 8, we initially thought no way. This is unbelievable, no one in their right mind would ever agree to do this. But we kept hearing these same allegations, over and over again, from different people in different parts of the country. And this is ACORN – these are the same of workers who registered Mickey Mouse to vote and offered tax advice to a pimp and prostitute.

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From Rasmussen Reports:

According to Entertainment Weekly:

We know that former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin can hunt, and even field-dress a moose, but how will she take to poachers on her book sales? Start-up publisher OR Books has announced plans to publish Going Rouge: Sarah Palin An American Nightmare, a collection of essays about the maverick Republican with a title — and cover design — remarkably similar to Palin’s upcoming memoir. What’s more, OR’s paperback tome will be released on Nov. 17, the same day that Palin’s own Going Rogue: An American Life hits shelves — and one day after Palin’s just-announced, first-ever appearance on Oprah Winfrey’s show. (A shout-out to Ron Hogan at GalleyCat for the tip.)

Going Rouge is compiled by Richard Kim and Betsy Reed, two top editors of the left-leaning weekly The Nation, and includes essays by Nation regulars like Katrina vanden Heuvel, Naomi Klein, and Katha Pollitt. It’s the first release from OR Books, a fledgling outfit founded earlier this year by publishing veterans John Oakes and Colin Robinson that “embraces progressive change in politics, culture and the way we do business,” according to its website.

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“O’Keefe did not dispute the authenticity of the police report ACORN filed with Philadelphia police following their visit. The filing of the police report by ACORN — Russell can be seen holding a copy of it in O’Keefe’s video — indicates the Philadelphia ACORN office had no intention of helping O’Keefe and Giles conduct any illegal activities, and ACORN said the police report “proves our clear understanding of this scam that was being portrayed.

The Radio Equalizer blog has published audio of Media Matter’s Karl Frisch admitting to Stephanie Miller on liberal talk radio that Rush Limbaugh never made the two famous racist statements defending slavery and praising Martin Luther King Jr. assassin James Earl Ray.  These statements were resurrected and proliferated by the media once it became known that Limbaugh was pursuing part ownership of the NFL’s St. Louis Rams:

FRISCH: You know, in fairness to Rush, those two out of literally dozens of racist things were not necessarily accurate. We were never able to find them. We’ve had people call us trying to find it. We don’t know where they came from. They could just be Internet apparitions. But you know, that being said, anyone who wants to know how racist he is, we’re happy to give them other examples.

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From the Washington Post:

Two undercover videographers released another videotape Wednesday of their interaction with an ACORN worker, contending that it reveals help they received from the community group’s Philadelphia office when they posed as a pimp and a prostitute seeking a home.

Unlike previous videotapes, the heavily edited footage includes audio of the two conservatives but none of the ACORN Housing Corp. worker’s responses to their questions.

But James O’Keefe and Hannah Giles said the tape rebuts statements by an ACORN official that a worker from its housing affiliate, Katherine Conway-Russell, had quickly kicked them out. “ACORN has lied every step of the way,” said Andrew Breitbart, whose conservative Web site, Big Government, has featured the pair’s videos from other cities. (more…)

From the Associated Press:

(Washington)–Two conservative activists released a new undercover video targeting the community organizing group ACORN on Wednesday, an attempt to re-ignite a simmering political controversy surrounding the Democratic-leaning organization.

The new videotape shows filmmakers Hannah Giles and James O’Keefe, posing as a prostitute and her boyfriend, soliciting advice about a possible housing loan from workers in the Philadelphia office of ACORN Housing Corp.

Previous videos showed the same pair, also posing as a prostitute and her boyfriend, visiting ACORN offices in other cities.

The Philadelphia visit is significant because of a dispute over statements ACORN has made defending what took place when Giles and O’Keefe visited the Philadelphia office last summer.

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(1)        Why did the Philadelphia office apparently waste taxpayer money and scarce police resources calling the police about a “verbal disturbance” by two people they were happy to help?

(2)        Why would ACORN file a police report after warmly helping us with our purported “prostitution business”?

(3)        Why would ACORN make a police complaint about a “verbal disturbance” when there was no disturbance?

(4)        Why did ACORN apparently call the police as many as 45 minutes after we left?

(5)        Why does ACORN apparently think that making and publishing an after-the-fact police complaint would cover up its willingness to help our “prostitution business” and its lies about what happened when we visited?

(Select “full screen” to view larger version of police report.)

ppd pdf –

Did ACORN’s Working Families Party steal an election in New York?

Fox News is reporting that absentee ballots were fraudulently cast with stolen identities, and that the number of allegedly fraudulent votes was enough to potentially tip the election in the favor of Working Families Party candidates.

Brian Suozzo voted with an absentee ballot in the Working Families Party primary on Sept. 15 because, as his application stated, he was “at home recovering from medical procedure.”

Jessica Boomhower’s application said she would be attending a “work conference in Boston.”

Michael Ward couldn’t vote in person because he was “taking care of elderly parent.”

Kimberlee Truell was on a “Bus trip to casino,” as was Miguel Vazques.

The only problem with these absentee ballot records at the Rensselaer County Board of Elections in Troy, N.Y., is that they’re phony, voters and investigators say — and they’ve prompted what’s being called an unprecedented investigation of suspected voter fraud.

One person who must comment on these developments is ACORN Chief Organizer and Working Families Party co-founder, Bertha Lewis.

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In the wake of the release of the ACORN Philly video, which shows conclusively that ACORN continues to lie to the public, press and its own supporters, ACORN is marshalling its remaining allies for a ‘rally.’ Scheduled for tomorrow in Los Angeles, the ‘rally’ is a last-ditch effort by ACORN to change the subject away from its lies and misdeeds. Full press release:

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For Immediate Release Contact:
Barbara Maynard or Erica Zeitlin
(213) 387-0780; Zeitlin cell (310) 968-0367

Communities Standing Together
Powerful Coalition of Clergy, Community, Labor Leaders to Hold Press Conference Denouncing Attacks on ACORN and Other Organizations Working for Change

A powerful new coalition of educators, clergy, civic, labor, and other leaders, “Communities Standing Together” – will hold an important press conference to denounce the recent slew of smear campaigns, factual distortions, and ugly attacks on ACORN and other organizations and individuals working for justice.

The press conference will take place at the home of Tommy and Debora Beard in Watts, longtime residents who saved their home of 24 years from foreclosure by organizing with ACORN. Civic leaders will denounce the attacks on ACORN and others – attacks that are clearly part of a broader coordinated effort to weaken the power of diverse groups working to level the playing field in America. As unemployment, foreclosures, and other problems continue to rise, community, faith, labor, and other leaders are standing together to restore the issues that matter to Americans, and to proclaim, “We will not be divided.” (more…)

Throughout the ACORN undercover sting video saga, no one has been more willing to assassinate the character of ACORN’s opponents than the hired guns at the left-wing group Media Matters for America.

Headed by former journalist and confessed serial liar David Brock, the extremely well-funded Washington, D.C.-based defamation factory has gone out of its way to attack conservative activists James O’Keefe and Hannah Giles, online news entrepreneur Andrew Breitbart, and this website – the truth be damned.

It’s worth noting that even the New York Times describes Media Matters as a “highly partisan research organization.”

Media Matters is only interested in generating a body count and won’t let facts get in the way.

Nothing better illustrates the depths to which Media Matters is willing to sink in order to protect its allies and smear its opponents than its outrageously irresponsible commentary on the ACORN undercover video saga.

Remember that ACORN provides the “shock troops” of the left. ACORN gets the vote out. ACORN wins elections. Those Democratic politicians who don’t love ACORN fear it – and for good reason. To the establishment left, ACORN must be defended at all costs.

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